World's most expensive photo

[Maritimer1]

I wonder if it's been Photoshopped!

Wow. I had to read some of the comments under the photo. One fellow said industrial buildings had been removed. Big whoop. It's boring. I may be culturally inept, but it's boring.

[Myk]

Aesthetics of the photo aside, Gursky was a fairly early adopter of digital photo manipulation. By today's standards the manipulation he did may seem mundane, but remember this was created in 1999. What type of computers were we using in 1999? Look at the size of the print and assume he printed at 300 dpi that is 21900 x 42900 or 939 mp; or 100dpi for 7300x14300 and 104mp. Even if it was interpolated that is a lot of processing power for 1999.
So from that stand point the photo is historical in the use of digital technology on such a large scale image, coupled with the popularity of the photographer, and the limited nature of the print; six were printed, this was the first and largest of them. Four of the remaining prints are in museums around the world. Throw in a bunch of wealthy art lovers in an auction environment with the inherent competition of such settings and it seems like the perfect storm of art sales.

[Melkus]

Justing wonding when I will get lucky and sell one of my photos for a cool mil or so

[Markvetnz]

I saw this image last week when I received our local photo club's newsletter. Suddenly I'm feeling rich. I toss out a hundred photos like that every time I come back from a shoot. Bugger, I should have kept them all!

My first reaction was WTF. A fool and his money are parted every day. However, having said that, there will be another fool willing to pay even more for it now.

[jwrobbo]

Nobody there!!

[GrahamH]

Another take on this event is that it increases the profile of photography as a collectible art form. Perhaps this will draw the attention of others who have lots of money to 'invest' in art. So there could be a knock-on effect further down the line.
If that IS the case, then photographic artists with tastes more similar to this forums members may be in a position to make more money and hence create more.
That would be a good thing. Only hope I am alive to see that happen.

Graham
(trying to find anything positive about this picture).

[Skyline]

I wonder if it's been Photoshopped!

There was a drive through Mcdonalds in the original



Someone probably started a rumour about how good the picture was around the mega rich.... and insane. One thing leads to another and before you know it all the rich people want it because they don't know what to spend their billions on.

It will be worth twice as much in 5 years once lady gaga has had it edited lol

[Milzarr]

I just saw this on a Chinese forum today!
Somehow it shows the relationship between nature and human........I don't get it.

[Eigil Skovgaard]

As this thread is about the absurd gab between the quality of Andreas Gursky’s image “Rhein II” and the price $4.34 million - leading to a lot of wondering, I thought that the obvious explanation would be appreciated.

Unfortunately my post about what is going on in real life immediately disappeared from this thread.

I respect the preferences here, but if you are interested in reading my explanation, just mail me on eigil.skovgaard(replace-with-at-sign)gmail.com and request the missing post from “World's most expensive photo”.