World's most expensive photo

[beechdale basher]

Sorry ladies & gents,

I just don't get it. I saw it here

http://www.businessinsider.com/andre...e-2011-11?op=1

along with a number of other "great" and valuable "art".

Call me what you will but I see images posted on this site and many other sites, daily, that I think are better images than this and that I would be prepared to pay more money for.

Is that the answer that images can be pleasing to the eye but may not be art or is there some other answer that only the educated "art critics" are able to understand and explain

[Donald]

Is that the answer that images can be pleasing to the eye but may not be art or is there some other answer that only the educated "art critics" are able to understand and explain

I think that's what they need us to believe. Otherwise there is no justification for their existence.

[sickhead21]

$4.3 million nice!
did the buyer mentioned what he sees in the photo? (just wondering)

[elfbob]

Beauty is supposedly "in the eye of the beholder" but regardless of this photo author's fame i have seen 5 year olds with a dslr set on auto getting very similar captures; what i don't "get" is this new "wave" of quasi "artistic" soft focus macro images that are often poorly composed & shoddily illuminated, but seem to be getting "rave" comments in many image posting venues. In the olden days of "wet" darkrooms, certain forms of "artisitc" license could be accomplished during the image photon transfer to paper but these consisted more of "dodging" hard edges not the "imageless" things i see today, but once again its a perceptual thing. Personally, i find it very very difficult to satisfactorily illuminate & macro image very small flowers where their captured image records their unique delicate form & the beauty in their subtle hues.

[russellsnr]

Well when I post photographs I always get the same statement "The horizon is not level" maybe me but it looks slightly out
Russ

[Sunray]

I have to add that weather in germany is not always gray nor river Rhine is flat like this everywhere. Sometime you can see even ships and boats on it and people walking besides during a warm sunny day.

bye
Robert

P.S.
Written at a dull cold autumn day...

[elfbob]

Well when I post photographs I always get the same statement "The horizon is not level" maybe me but it looks slightly out
Russ

Everything in the natural world doesn't have the horizon at zero degrees, it depends on what the horizon is.

[acsky]

In the case I had 4.3 million in cash at hand, I would go to the closest Best Buy, buy the most expensive camera they had, the most expensive lens they had, take the first flight to Germany, rent a limo to take me to the banks of the Rhein, shoot Rhein III, then go to a bar and invite all the Cambridge in Colour members in town as much beer as they can drink, and then put the other 4.25 million back in my bank account....

Rhein II definitely makes me wonder if I made the right choices, as an engineer and as a photographer...

[Lexie in NZ]

In the case I had 4.3 million in cash at hand, I would go to the closest Best Buy, buy the most expensive camera they had, the most expensive lens they had, take the first flight to Germany, rent a limo to take me to the banks of the Rhein, shoot Rhein III, then go to a bar and invite all the Cambridge in Colour members in town as much beer as they can drink, and then put the other 4.25 million back in my bank account....

I like your line of thinking - would you consider using some of the remaining 4.25m to fly a few far flung CiC members to join the fun?? I'm sure we'd all bring cameras, we could make a weekend of it

Lexie

[GrahamH]

Could it be that the art critics think the picture is pice of: -

Compositionally excellent,
Really, really good,
Atmospheric to the sublime,
Poetical
image?

Graham

[Viana]

could it be that the art critics think the picture is pice of: - compositionally excellent, really, really good, atmospheric to the sublime, poetical image? Graham

Nope!

Pass the beer.

[steve40]

I really feel good about the picture, it makes me feel like a pro. I really have a lot of stuff!, I could sell this guy.

[jupiterlush]

Whhhhhhhhhhy?

[RockNGoalStar]

I actually enjoy his work. He has a very definite style and and is very consistent with it. The sheer fact that they are not conventionally beautiful is precisely what appeals to me.

I think if there are people out there prepared to spend fortunes on it then good luck to him

[Colin Southern]

I actually enjoy his work. He has a very definite style and and is very consistent with it.

If I read correctly - somewhat ironically - it's also HEAVILY "Photoshopped"

[rhadorn]

Agree with Tommy.

I always looked ad Ansel's pictures independently of the prices they reached in auctions, even at the time his pictures were on the top of the list, say, fourty years ago.

I don't feel so much concerned by the art market. To me, the value objects take on that market is anecdotical and does certainly not relate to any intrinsic value of the object. We know this thanks to Duchamp and his exhibits of everyday objects. There is probably nothing around like an intrinsic value of any kind of object, certainly not in the domain of art. At this point, we can only say that Gursky would not win any CiC competition but is highly valued on other markets.

There's a lot of money flowing into much less sensible things than a beautiful picture.

Having seen two dozens of pictures of Gursky in their original sizes a an exhibition in Basel, I know that any opinion based on the poor jpegs available online are out of place.

Having seen those two dozens of prints, I know that I would really like to see Rhein II as an original, too.

As far as I can judge on the basis of the small formats available, I like very much the subtelty of this picture. It does not overhelm the viewer with hight contrast and conventional colors but invites him instead to go into every shade of that not so dull sky and to look between every grass leave. This takes as much time as looking at Montet's Water Lilies.

I don't like photography competitions and feel no need to pretend that I have better pictures on my hard disk. I am going my way while you are going yours and Gursky his own. His success does not put me into question; and sure I will take the next opportunity to go and see an exhibit of originals if it is in reach of the place where I live.

Reto

[TobyMac]

I couldn't believe it when I first saw this, its so simple yet made so much money. I took a picture pretty much the same at the same location and it looks pretty much the same, granted its not that big but still...anyone wanna buy it

[Melkus]

WoW!! Well I should get that much for mine or more. Here a shot of the Pfalz Castle in the middle of the Rhine river I shot many many years ago when I was station in Germany as a young man. Sorry about the poor quality, shot with a 110 camera on a moving train

[TobyMac]

Hey Melkus I actually like that shot, has a really old feel about it

[Melkus]

Hey Melkus I actually like that shot, has a really old feel about it

Yea I guess so since this was around 1978