The Financial Times used to be almost daily reading material…. OK, that’s a lie, despite my murky past, but I came across this article on the market for fine art photography concentrating on Annie Liebowitz’s predicament. Given how much she has enjoyed access to subjects who would attract collectors:

Leibovitz thus has the potential to do what Avedon and Penn did – to become as highly valued as an artist as a commercial photographer. The fact that she has not achieved it, so far at least, is because of something more vital than access, maybe even talent. It is something that has bedevilled the photography world from the technology’s earliest days. She lacks rarity value.

While in a sense it’s a matter of her having created too many well-known images, I can’t help but feel that with a bit of marketing spin such as “limited edition printed by Buddhist monks on 1 kilo platinum-infused paper stock” you’d attract Russian oligarchs and money launderers or Abu Dhabi sheikhs who’ll pay big money for any old crap. But perhaps the moral is that to maximise your fine art collectability you shouldn’t work so hard, or just go crazy and burn your negs?