The art of photography
Collectors no longer need be ambivalent about the value of photography as contemporary art.
It is ironic that even as prices for art rose (till August last year) or collapsed thereafter, photography in India, which could have provided a fillip, continued to be largely ignored. This is, of course, as true of our market as it is, to a great extent, of China, with the West at the forefront as far as photography is concerned. Nor is it all that difficult to understand given the dynamics of the market in India — photographers are poorly paid, clients rarely have a handsome outlay when planning their shoots and photographs for media use are acquired at unusually low value.
Perhaps that is why we have not really considered food, or fashion or architectural photography as art forms, and which is why contemporary photography in India is hardly given its due. To even imagine an Annie Leibovitz in India — the Vanity Fair photographer who has spent so much she is in debt to the tune of $24 million — would be impossible. Or maybe we have our photographers to blame: Despite their obvious talent, they have not been able to call the shots, particularly those associated with the glamour and fashion world.
With a few exceptions such as Raghu Rai, who quit India Today, or Prabir Purkayastha, who left the advertising trade, no one has shown the ability to take risks. And still, there are photographers such as Dayanita Singh, who have taken photography to an elevated platform — whose work is shown around the world by Steidl, whose works such as Myself Mona Ahmed is an over-decade long series of photographs of a eunuch named Mona, and whose pictures have been shown by such iconic galleries overseas as Ikon or Frith Street.
Dedicated photography galleries are now bringing the medium into focus, and no longer are limited edition runs of pictures unusual or — even as they were a few years ago — questionable. But still, photography is not the medium of choice among collectors. Which is why instead of seeing the glass as half-empty, the shrewd collector should see it as half-full, with opportunities just beginning to surface. Who, after all, is unfamiliar with the Ebrahim Alkazi collection of rare photographs dating back from the British Raj to pre-independence India, tracking the freedom movement with archival photographs and material on landscapes and cityscapes and portraits? That alone should be a lead on what collectors could look out for. As they scour the markets — kabaris and antique shops included — they could build their own collection of portraits, these collections even including turn-of-the-century pictures of, for instance, Parsi families, or women, or merchants, or simply Gandhi. More recently, how about buying out the entire collection of, say, a fashion photographer, or someone who does still-life? Or travel landscapes?
Is there any merit in this for the collector? An entire collection of a photographer will hold great financial value in time to come, but far better to work thematically — which might include the work of a number of photographers, but a study of, say, Bollywood over the years (not film stills, or posters, but pictures that are not usually seen), or say a study on the eunuchs (as a subject), or migrant populations (the fabulous series shot by Rohit Chawla comes to mind), or even cities shot, as in the case of some photographers, from waist level.
Does this mean that just the one photograph as a work of art has neither present nor future? Far from it. While it is true that the occasional photograph in a larger collection of art does not necessarily work well (where is the context?), what tips the scale usually is a collector who is bent on collecting either a single photographer’s works, or a large body of photographic works. The easy way to start may be to log on to www.wonderwall.com , which might be an inexpensive way to start looking at photographic works that are sold in editions. The best, at the top of the heap, is Devika Daulet-Singh’s Photoink gallery in New Delhi, the hub of cutting-edge photo exhibitions by some of the best photographers you’re likely to see in India.
Emerging in between are mainstream works of photography art that better serve the needs of most contemporary collectors. Perhaps because these are not conventional photographs and fit the requirement of edgier art, they’re happier to plumb for it — as is becoming increasingly evident in the work of artists such as Atul Bhalla, Gigi Scaria and, from across the border, Rashid Rana, whose series of pictures of carcasses, for instance, went into making a collage that most resembled a Persian carpet from afar.
It is works such as these that collectors are seeking out. Most such photographs or photo-canvases or photo-installations are sold in editions of five, or seven, or nine works, and the cost is usually spread over these, which is one reason photographs are still not very expensive. Each photograph is numbered and signed by the artist, and stamped by a gallery, which then issues a certificate of authenticity. This alone should help assuage any fears collectors might have about additional, unauthorised copies circulating in the market. However, one thing they do need to be aware of when they’re buying an edition is that at the start they are likely to be priced lower than as the edition starts to sell out — in other words, 1/7 is likely to be less expensive than 7/7.
How inexpensive are photographs? Well, from approximately Rs 10,000 on Wonderwall, to a couple of lakhs at gallery sales is the norm. However, photo-art (the Atul Bhallas et cetera) are ramping up their prices pretty much in tune with the rest of Indian contemporary art, so prices for their works have started moving up at quite a scorching pace. It’s a good time to buy in now — any later and the price advantage will likely have been lost.