Fotograf Magazine

About thirty years ago, photography began to fill galleries more frequently, including galleries not specializing in photography. At the same time, photography began to be studied at universities, and photographs began to be sold for considerable sums of money. The first commercial gallery specializing in photography was opened in 1969; in 1980, as Lewis Baltz says in his book American Images, the incredible sum of US$ 72,000 was paid for a wall-sized enlargement of a work by Ansel Adams (who was still alive at the time). Consequently, the competitiveness of the art photography scene has only increased. The trend towards photography’s higher acknowledgement and raised prestige on the art scene was first evident in the United States, but with time Europe followed suit.