Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => But is it Art? => Topic started by: David White on August 17, 2006, 11:16:34 am
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There is an interesting article on Wired News this morning about digital photography as art. His premise is, to quote, "The very act of making something easily achievable, and achievable by great numbers of people, diminishes the creation. The article can be found here. (http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71599-0.html?tw=wn_index_3)
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I think this is basically hogwash. I think he's confusing static goals with creativity. If everyone could easily climb Mt Everest or run a sub 3:47 mile then certainly, reaching those goals becomes trivialized. I'd argue that the opposite happens in the realm of creativity. There is no physical boundary that's reached - you can always improve.
A small mind expirement. Assume that photography (digital or otherwise) was taught with the same vigor in all our schools, as is math and practiced professionally by the same number as are employed today as lawyers - would we have more, better photographs or fewer?
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Certainly creativity is foremost in the creation of art regardless of the medium. But I wonder - suppose that Ansel did have access to our current technology and was able to produce hundreds of identical prints of each of his negatives. Would people pay $25,000 and more for one of those today? What if there were 500 identical copies of the Mona Lisa produced by the artist? We can have uniqueness in the creativity of the content of the image, but what of the uniqueness of the final print?
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Certainly creativity is foremost in the creation of art regardless of the medium. But I wonder - suppose that Ansel did have access to our current technology and was able to produce hundreds of identical prints of each of his negatives. Would people pay $25,000 and more for one of those today? What if there were 500 identical copies of the Mona Lisa produced by the artist? We can have uniqueness in the creativity of the content of the image, but what of the uniqueness of the final print?
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We have that problem today in the context of artist's prints - any idea how many Salvador Dali prints there are out there?
There are probably millions of copies of the Mona Lisa out there - does that make it any less a masterpiece?
This argument is a bit like saying that since everyone has a CD of Beethoven's ninth that it isn't any good anymore. My point is that if any Joe on the street could produce a 9th, just think what someone really really good could create.
Tony's point was that since "everyone" can make a digital shot look "good" that it's not art. All he's really saying is that if he were to choose an artistic endeavor he'd choose a less competitive field - perhaps sculpturing individual grains of rice.
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There are many sides to this. There is the creative/artistic value and the perceived value. I can certainly appreciate prints of fine art, in fact I have several hanging on my walls. I think that the "value" of a work of art can be approached on many levels.
Do we perceive the value of a mass produced work of art the same as a single copy produced by the same artist? I suspect that original art has a higher perceived value than art which can be produced identivcally an infinite number of times. The creation of art has moved from a hand-crafted media to a computer generated media and I think that the public and the art world does not perceive the same level of craftsmanship to be present in digital output.
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There are many sides to this. There is the creative/artistic value and the perceived value. I can certainly appreciate prints of fine art, in fact I have several hanging on my walls. I think that the "value" of a work of art can be approached on many levels.
Do we perceive the value of a mass produced work of art the same as a single copy produced by the same artist? I suspect that original art has a higher perceived value than art which can be produced identivcally an infinite number of times. The creation of art has moved from a hand-crafted media to a computer generated media and I think that the public and the art world does not perceive the same level of craftsmanship to be present in digital output.
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I haven't read the essay referred to in this thread yet but the comments here remind me of the importance of reading Walter Benjamin's essay "The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" as it is basically "required reading" before engaging in an argument like this one. As a short-short "cliffnote" Benjamin introduced the concept of the "Aura" of an original piece, let's say a painting (the Joconde/Mona Lisa for example). The Aura is only present in the original, not in reproductions. Note that I do not fully agree with Benjamin. I am only providing this information to summarize his point.
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I'll admit that I think the writer has a good point. The digital revolution has in many ways diminished photography. The act of making a decent image is easier for anyone than ever before. On the other hand, with all the crap floating around on the web and in galleries, it is easier to spot great work also. It's like spotting a piece of gold on the surface of a vulcanic beach. The great images and the great prints will always stand out.
Look at it this way. You walk around in a big city with heavy traffic. On rare occations you'll notice a nice car, but not think much about it. But then, a Lamborghini drives by and you immediatley turn your head in awe. We are bombarded with images each and every day and more often than ever, but I think it is a good thing. With the widespread use of images, the tiny percentage used as Art will stand out, and the good ones will jumpstart our hearts.
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I haven't read the essay referred to in this thread yet but the comments here remind me of the importance of reading Walter Benjamin's essay "The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" as it is basically "required reading" before engaging in an argument like this one. As a short-short "cliffnote" Benjamin introduced the concept of the "Aura" of an original piece, let's say a painting (the Joconde/Mona Lisa for example). The Aura is only present in the original, not in reproductions. Note that I do not fully agree with Benjamin. I am only providing this information to summarize his point.
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Alain,
Thanks for the tip about the essay. I'm in the middle of sanding and pressure washing my deck, but a quick glance at it has piqued my interest. It appears that it will be very interesting reading and I certainly plan on doing that later today.
For anyone else interested, the essay can be found [a href=\"http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm]here. [/url]
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What we really talk about is photography becoming Kitsch, which it in many ways is. Clement Greenbergs provocative essay still has much merit today and to this discussion. For anyone interested it is found here: http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html (http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html)
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Look at it this way. You walk around in a big city with heavy traffic. On rare occations you'll notice a nice car, but not think much about it. But then, a Lamborghini drives by and you immediatley turn your head in awe. We are bombarded with images each and every day and more often than ever, but I think it is a good thing. With the widespread use of images, the tiny percentage used as Art will stand out, and the good ones will jumpstart our hearts.
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I like this analogy.
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My view is that digital cameras and the digital dark room only speed up the process that goes from starting photography to reaching one's creative limits at a certain point of time.
In the film days, higher technical barriers prevented an efficient convergence towards one's vision - or even the developement of a vision - while the immediate feedback provided by the TFT screen/histogram of the digital camera helps getting rid of these barriers.
In the end, what remains is a vision whose quality depends on the talent of the artist. As I have been stating regularly here, this vision is independant from the medium, and can be unleached just as well with a 3MP Sony than it can with a 39 MP P45, but both of these tools will indeed enable this vision to come accross accurately more easily than a 35 mm film camera ever did.
Overall, I am not sure that things have fundamentaly changed.
The discussion of the value of an original vs reproductions is also very important, but might be a slightly different point IMHO.
Cheers,
Bernard
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My outlook on life is mostly optimistic rather than pessimistic, but in our business there appears to be an emerging up side. Yes, the mechanics of photography are a lot easier and it is certainly more accessible. But as a result lots more people are interested in photography and aware of good results, even to the point of recognizing and respecting the difficulty in achieving and ultimate value of really good photography.
This is reflected in both sides of our business. We appear to be "losing" jobs once potential clients learn our rates, often saying something like "I'll just take the shots myself" or "My aunt Susie has a digital camera, so I'll ask her to do it." But more often than not, the same folks return a few days later to arrange another stab at their shoot, this time not quibbling about rates or shooting times.
We experience a similar outcome on print sales. Viewers have a more discerning eye and along with the usual questions about gear, also recount their own failed attempts to achieve similar results. They seem MORE willing to plunk the bucks for our prints, both because of their own experiences and because they are more interested in photography due to their access via digital.
However you analyze the root causes, one thing is clear: Our volume is up both in commercial shooting and print sales. You still have to wade through the "sticker shock" on our rates, but after that there's less quibbling than before the market was sloshed with digital.
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Overall, I am not sure that things have fundamentaly changed.
Bernard
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Indeed. Below are quotes from the essay with my comments in parenthesis. I only quoted the passages where the author describes photography:
"I liked the lab work as much as the fieldwork" (replace lab by digital)
"The darkroom was where the real art was made." (add "digital" before "darkroom")
"The negative was your raw material." (replace negative by Raw file or Scan)
"I worked in formats from 35 mm to 8x10, depending on the subject matter and the equipment at hand" (no change needed here)
"But what you did with it once it was in the enlarger determined whether or not you walked out of there with a "photograph" or merely a "snapshot." (replace enlarger by computer or the name of your favorite software)
"What to crop, what to retain?" (same today)
"Burning in here, dodging a bit there." (same, except we now have far better control)
"How did that lint get on the negative?" (replace lint with dust and negative with sensor)
"Feeling the stop bath sear your cuticles." (no direct equivalent but no one except the author misses the pain ;-))
"Choosing the right paper stock." (still one of the most important choices today)
"In other words, it was hands-on." (still is)
"It required some honest sweat." (still does)
"It required time." (always will)
"When you were finished, and assuming you had done sterling work, you had produced a piece of art. (I couldn't agree more)
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>>The discussion of the value of an original vs reproductions is also very important, but might be a slightly different point IMHO.<<
One question is, "What's an original?" With digital reproduction, it's possible to essentially make as many "originals" as you want, as there is no detectable difference between the copies. That's not true either with wet darkrooms or painting. I have a modest collection of photos, and I can tell you that before each purchase there is always a discussion of whether the print "is a good one." Is it a good Moonrise or a good Running White Deer, or is it a slightly-off version?
Then, in something that has nothing to do with aesthetics, a lot of well-known photographers have begun editioning their prints, to make them artificially scarce. This actually works; I own a one-of-nine Mapplethorpe flower print, and every year or so the dealer I bought it from (in '94 or so) calls me up to see if I want to sell it, because they have become extremely hard to get. But Mapplethorpe could have made a thousand prints of the same picture, and it wouldn't have diminished my experience of the print at all; but if he had, I can guarantee that nobody would be calling me up.
If we lived in a particular kind of non-human society where nobody had the snob impulse, then the best photographers would make hundreds of their prints available at modest prices, and everybody would be satisifed by the purely aesthetic experience, and the artist would make as much money as they do now with a liimited edition. But, one-upmanship is purely human, so here we are, buying limited editions.
Here's an idea for the ultimate modern aesthetic experience: make ONE copy of a great photo, have it shown in a good museum, then get a picture of yourself burning it, and sell a limited edition those pictures. Hmmm...now if I could just make one great photo...
JC
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John,
You make an excellent point and I agree with what you say. But regarding making as many copies of an original as possible (let's say 100's or 1000's although it could be more) something has to be said for spending your time printing rather than creating new work. Printing 10 images takes a certain amount of time. Printing 100 images takes much more time (10 times more) and so on. Since there are only 24hrs in a day, no matter who we are, the number of prints we make per image basically affects how many new images we can create.
This extends to other arts. For example, in Native American arts (it could be any art, this is just an example I am familiar with), an artist may create a sculpture, a jewelry piece, a basket, a rug, etc., find it sells well, and decide to just "crank out" as many copies of that one piece as will sell. Another artist may just make that one piece, then move on to making different pieces.
And even though all the pieces might look equally beautiful, and be just as carefully crafted, there is something about owning a piece created in small numbers -or a unique piece- that I personally like.
So while artists may use quantiy as a way to create scarcity, they may also be using quantity as a way to control what they spend their time doing, either printing (or recreating) the same piece endlessly, or creating new pieces and moving further with their art. Eventually all artists face this dilemna.
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But regarding making as many copies of an original as possible (let's say 100's or 1000's although it could be more) something has to be said for spending your time printing rather than creating new work. Printing 10 images takes a certain amount of time. Printing 100 images takes much more time (10 times more) and so on. Since there are only 24hrs in a day, no matter who we are, the number of prints we make per image basically affects how many new images we can create.
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Alain,
You might personally insist on spending your time supervising the printing process of each print that comes off a 30m roll of paper, but is it necessary?
Once you've editied the image, selected the paper and the appropriate profile, the amount of supervision required is minimal, is it not? If you insist on being there whilst the printer churns out print after print, you can be doing other things, like editing your next image. If you have a reliable assistant, you can take off and shoot some more photos whilst the printer is busy churning out its thousandth print. Printers are that reliable, are they not?
I don't want to appear negative, but we should confront reality.
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And even though all the pieces might look equally beautiful, and be just as carefully crafted, there is something about owning a piece created in small numbers -or a unique piece- that I personally like.
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There are several values that may be associated with a work of art. There is the artistic merit, which for photography, does not diminish with the quantity produced - assuming that all pieces are printed equally.
There is also the street value. This would normally tend to decrease as the quantity of prints increases independent of the artistic value.
Thirdly, we have the value of ownership to which Alain refers. To put it mathematically, it could be loosely described as the artistic value + the street value. The more unique, and the higher the esthetics of the piece the more value it would have to the owner.
I have a large print of Mark Rothko's Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue hanging in my living room. I greatly admire the print, even though it is only a printed copy. But the reason I like it is because of the artistic value and the response it evokes in me.
I also have a vintage W. Eugene Smith photograph from World War II. It has a great deal of artistic value and is number 8 of 11 prints made from the negative making it fairly unique. It also has a somewhat high street value. I enjoy both prints equally artistically but have to admit a certain pride of ownership with this print.
Both of these peices speak to me and evoke an emotional response regardless of the quantity produced. In a contest, the W. Eugene Smith would win only because it is valuable and irreplaceable and I can always buy another print of the Mark Rothko.
The bottom line is that the quantity does not determine the artistic value, but that there are other values present with any work of art which can be affected by the number of pieces produced.
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Alain,
You might personally insist on spending your time supervising the printing process of each print that comes off a 30m roll of paper, but is it necessary?
Once you've editied the image, selected the paper and the appropriate profile, the amount of supervision required is minimal, is it not? If you insist on being there whilst the printer churns out print after print, you can be doing other things, like editing your next image. If you have a reliable assistant, you can take off and shoot some more photos whilst the printer is busy churning out its thousandth print. Printers are that reliable, are they not?
I don't want to appear negative, but we should confront reality.
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What you describe is not the way I work. I print everything myself and I do printing and nothing else when I print. Then there is curating, mounting, matting, framing if framed, etc. It's actually a complex process and this short description does not do it justice. To let the printer work unattended is, in my approach, asking for trouble. Nozzles can easily clog and printing needs to be supervised to see if this is the case. I get fairly nervous when I print and find it difficult to do much of anything else except menial tasks. Some may be able to let the printer work and move on to creative endeavors. I simply cannot do that, this simply isn't me. So in my situation printing is THE creative endeavor. So the more prints of one image I make, the less time I have to make other images. I simply can't imagine going out on a photography expedition while my printer is working unattended. Long papper rolls cannot simply unwind on the floor. If so, prints get scratched. One has to cut each print as it starts to reach the floor, or stretch it in front of the printer so it lays flat and the image faces up. But there is a length limit, and when reached this means the printer has to be paused, the print cut off, and the printing resumed. There is also the ink carts running dry, and having to be replaced within seconds or the print will have a mark where the ink dried before the cart was replaced. Finally I often print on loose sheets, of various sizes. In that case in the 9800 its one shett at a time. In the 4800 I can stack about 20 sheets, but feeding problems occur regularly and have to be taken care of or the printing is paused and then nothing happens until I take care of that. Then there is the need to restack sheets. And there is more but this post is already extremely long...
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What you describe is not the way I work. I print everything myself and I do printing and nothing else when I print.
But that was not the question. The question was: is it necessary?
Which is relevant in the context of the OP; the process of reproduction can be automated...
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But that was not the question. The question was: is it necessary?
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I can't speak for others but for me the answer is Yes, it is necessary.
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I can't speak for others but for me the answer is Yes, it is necessary.
But do you agree that it can be automated? (possibly with supervision by a third person...)
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But do you agree that it can be automated? (possibly with supervision by a third person...)
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Not in my work since I supervise all the printing myself and I am the only one printing my work.
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Not in my work since I supervise all the printing myself and I am the only one printing my work.
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I understand, but that is a bit self-absorbed and control-freakish wouldn't you say? Why do you find it necessary to do your own printing?
I mean this with all due respect and think it could be relevant in the context. Could you try and explain why you can not separate the printing from the act of creation?
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I understand, but that is a bit self-absorbed and control-freakish wouldn't you say? Why do you find it necessary to do your own printing?
I mean this with all due respect and think it could be relevant in the context. Could you try and explain why you can not separate the printing from the act of creation?
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I am working on an essay which will answer your questions. Until now I assumed the answer was self evident, especially regarding why I do my own printing, but I now see this makes an interesting topic for an essay and that there are some interesting issues and comparisons with darkroom printing to write about. Thank you for asking.
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I like this analogy.
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Yah, but just as there are far more beautiful cars on the road today than ever before, there are more beautiful photographic images made today than ever before.
Some of the awesome flood of imagery we see is good, much of it's bad, but if only a tiny proportion is "art", it seems even statistically likely that there are more "art" images produced now than ever in the history of photography.
P
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Some of the awesome flood of imagery we see is good, much of it's bad, but if only a tiny proportion is "art", it seems even statistically likely that there are more "art" images produced now than ever in the history of photography.
P
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I doubt that. Technology does not produce art. Having more available and advanced technology does not lead to the assumption that there is more high-quality work, unless you are simply talking about technical quality. The photographer is reasonsible for the work. If you could prove that humans have advanced, then you may have an argument, but after seeing the news today, I think that will not be the case.
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Any photographic process, whether chemical or electronic, can be automated. No matter how automated the process, the final result is because of the skill and care of the operator.
Humans tend to admire hand-made objects over machine-made ones. Digital, for better of worse, is percieved as a machine-based process. Chemical photography is thought of as less so, but still machines are used. Only in painting and drawing can it be said that something is hand made. But even there most graphic artists use computers and the camera obsura has been a painter's tool for centuries.
The process an artist chooses is personal. No process is "better" than another because what counts is the result. The process is the journey the artist take to reach that result.
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I doubt that. Technology does not produce art. Having more available and advanced technology does not lead to the assumption that there is more high-quality work, unless you are simply talking about technical quality. The photographer is reasonsible for the work. If you could prove that humans have advanced, then you may have an argument, but after seeing the news today, I think that will not be the case.
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I agree. I think being an Artist is a relatively conscious process, even for the ones for whom it was a vocation rather than a choice. You at least expect an Artist to attempt to produce Art consistently. Obviously we have a larger potential of the occasional beautiful image captured, but there is also a much larger chance of that same image being gone and forgotten in the multitude, because the person never intents to do anything artsy with it.
In other words, there may be more images out there and therefore more beautiful images as well, but we will simply never see them because it becomes progressively harder to get noticed if that's the intention in the first place.
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I doubt that. Technology does not produce art. Having more available and advanced technology does not lead to the assumption that there is more high-quality work, unless you are simply talking about technical quality. The photographer is reasonsible for the work. If you could prove that humans have advanced, then you may have an argument, but after seeing the news today, I think that will not be the case.
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Anon,
I think the argument that more cameras in the hands of more people results in a greater number of good photos, comes from George Bernard Shaw when he was asked what he thought about the proliferation of miniature 35mm cameras that almost everyone could afford.
It's a bit like the argument; if you could sit a monkey at a typewriter for a billion years, it might produce a verse of Shakespeare, word perfect with commas and full stops.
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This point is coming a little late in the discussion, but I believe John Sexton was once Ansel Adams' assistant. So, Alain, suppose you had an assistant of John Sexton's quality doing your printing, and that's what the guy did -- he was a printer. He didn't want to go out and shoot, just wanted to print. You, say, would make a master print, and then Sexton would make 100 or 1,000 more, for your approval and signature. Now, it might detract from YOUR total experience of photography to have John Sexton doing the printing, but would it detract from your clients' experience? (I'll accept either 'yes' or 'no' for an answer; either is totally legitimate.)
I do think handmade stuff has an iconic or totemic value. Most people I know, including the most skeptical, have a few totems around the house, if nothing more than a wedding ring or a lucky hat. (Or a lucky Leica.) Totems do give off a vibe of some kind; that response may be hard-wired into our wet-ware.
JC
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This point is coming a little late in the discussion, but I believe John Sexton was once Ansel Adams' assistant. So, Alain, suppose you had an assistant of John Sexton's quality doing your printing, and that's what the guy did -- he was a printer. He didn't want to go out and shoot, just wanted to print. You, say, would make a master print, and then Sexton would make 100 or 1,000 more, for your approval and signature. Now, it might detract from YOUR total experience of photography to have John Sexton doing the printing, but would it detract from your clients' experience? (I'll accept either 'yes' or 'no' for an answer; either is totally legitimate.)
JC
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Yes
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Yes
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Reminds me of some of the answers from our Prime Minister (John Howard) in parliament question time . Nevertheless, brief and to the point.
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Since the invention of photography there has been a cycle of new technologies replacing the old ones, but digital photography has exponentially added to the amount of photos that are out there. But in my opinion, today there is an even greater need for high quality images to stand out from the others that may be technically sound, but have little else to offer.
Also, printing one's own work can be a very rewarding experience, as well as making the printer a better photographer. Being close to the work brings a certain satisfaction that is different than say, handing off files to the client and seeing them in a large print run.
To each his own.
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Anon,
I think the argument that more cameras in the hands of more people results in a greater number of good photos, comes from George Bernard Shaw when he was asked what he thought about the proliferation of miniature 35mm cameras that almost everyone could afford.
It's a bit like the argument; if you could sit a monkey at a typewriter for a billion years, it might produce a verse of Shakespeare, word perfect with commas and full stops.
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And just because they are doing it with MS Word with the spell checker on does not really mean there are better primate writers.
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Hi folks
This discussion is heading the way of so many: is my point more valuable than yours?
Frankly, Alain has written more or les all that can be written sensibly about the choices of personal or supervised/non-supervised print production. In the end, it all comes down to personal interest in the medium and one's participation in that to the nth degree (or not).
I am at the tail-end of a photographic career that began professionally in '60 and as my own business in '66. I know that I was never interested in being other than a one-man band, from shooting through delivery of final print to client. This was possible with b/w because of economics whereas with colour prints (few) it had to be a farmed-out operation, the results of which never pleased me because, having gone through colour printing as an employee, I knew only too well that there comes a testing stage where the dreaded 'commercially acceptable' factor steps in to stop further refinement of the work at hand. This depressed me more than somewhat. Fortunately, most of my colour work, eventually, was transparencies and there life was less of a bother because once a good lab was found, I tended to stay with it; I did do most of that stuff on Kodachrome anyway, so (for non-USA readers) it was a matter of being obliged to put faith in Kodak to do the processing of their own material too!
So, as Alain suggests (and possibly implies) it is all a matter of choice and of how much pride one has in one's work and how personal one wants it to be, analogue or digital not really making that much of a difference to one's set of personal ethics.
Ciao - Rob C
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Yah, but just as there are far more beautiful cars on the road today than ever before, there are more beautiful photographic images made today than ever before.
Some of the awesome flood of imagery we see is good, much of it's bad, but if only a tiny proportion is "art", it seems even statistically likely that there are more "art" images produced now than ever in the history of photography.
P
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Yes, but in 1927 there was 2 billion people in the world. We are now over 6.5 billion! Even though there might be proportionally more images made, even as art, I think most people paying for images will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. The general market for selling images has also grown substantially in this period. As I see it, proportionally, there isn't necessarily published more beautiful/good (for the lack of better words) photography today than 50 years ago. Photography isn't static, and the art, craft, usage and interpretation of photography changes as society changes. Just as in the traditional darkroom there are masters of the digital darkroom. The only difference is that the bar has been raised, but so it has in almost every other area of society.
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From my POV, the control of the print is not to make an exact reproduction of a 1000 copies, it's to make 1000 original works of art from the digital image I created. Either because I am dyslectic and can't do the same function twice or I am an artist who chooses to exersize creative input on each work I make, is up for debate.
Music is an example of this same concept. Record a song and make a million records, they are the same, but write the music down and have a group of musicans interpet the score, each time it is different. Ask a conductor about his vision of a 200 yr old piece of music and I believe he will agree that each time it is performed, it's different.
I came in late to this disscussion but I value each print as an original, but the problem is the customer does not understand this,some see it as a copy.
This is an open ended problem without a definable solution for either artist or customer.
Wyndham
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I don't think digital changes anything about the quality or value of very very high end photographic art.
Ansel Adams prints are worth a ton because he is a household name, his pictures are highly prized & desirable, and original "official" prints they are in extremely short supply.
If you become the most revered photographer of the current generation, and you control the supply of your work, I can't see how digital is going to change anything.
For example right now I can go buy a reproduction of Ansel Adams work, which is probably digital, for a price I can afford. I cannot get the real thing because the supply was tightly controlled and I cannot afford an original.
You could do the same thing with your digital work given popularity approaching Adams simply by highly restricting the # of gallery quality large prints made available. Sell 4x6/8x10 lower quality reproduction en masse if the desire is there, but make the 30x40 gallery masterpiece extremely hard to come by. If you only make 10 of those which are designated authentic they would eventually be worth a huge amount of money, just as an optical print would be.
All it comes down to is supply versus demand. If you stick your original digital file on the internet the photo will probably never be worth anything, but if supply/access is tightly controlled and demand skyrockets, the photo will still be worth a huge amount of money.
I think this idea of how hard it is to produce the actual print with digital vs. analog is a side issue, photographers understand it but the consumers of photography really don't need to know or understand that, all they need to know is whether or not a print is easily acquired. Ease of pumping out thousands of prints does not mean every digital photographer needs to do so.