Photography is one of the most democratic forms of art. Anyone can pick up a camera and snap away, especially in today’s age of high-quality cameras included in smartphones.
But just because anyone can click the shutter button doesn’t meant they’ll produce great art. The big-league photographers can command a simply awesome amount of money for their pictures. Here are the top 10 most valuable photographer’s photos in the world.
#1 Rhein II
This photograph of the Rhine river by German photographer Andreas Gursky took home a whopping US$4.3 million dollars at a Christie’s auction in New York. That’s a record for priciest photo sold at auction.
#2 Untitled #96
This photo by American artist Cindy Sherman fetched $3.9 million at auction.
#3 99 Cent II Diptychon
The German photographer Andreas Gursky has not one but two photos among the world’s priciest. This 2001 piece sold for $3.3 million.
#4 The Pond-Moonlight
An early 20th-century photograph by Luxembourg-born nature-shooting expert Edward Steichen was worth $2.9 million.
#5 Billy the Kid
Though it’s not known who shot this photo of iconoclastic wild west outlaw Billy the Kid, what is known that it was purchased for $2.3 million at auction.
#6 Kremlin of Tobolsk
This is a bit of an oddity. Shot by Russian prime ministerDmitry Medvedev, the photo fetched $1.7 million at a charity auction in Russia.
#7 Georgia O’Keeffe
One artist taking a photograph of another artist. That’s what’s happening in photo master Alfred Stieglitz’s 1919 snap of painter Georgia O’Keeffe, which auction for $1.4 million.
#8 Dovimi with Elephants
Richard Avedon took this somewhat bizarre photo back in 1955. It sold, 55 years later, for $1.1 million dollars.
#9 Nautilus
American artist Edward Weston’s 1927 abstract photograph went for $1 million in 2010.
#10 The Great Wave, Sete
Click here to see the world’s most expensive photograghs.
This photo was taken from the early days of photography, in 1857, by Gustave Le Gray. Considered a nature-photography classic, it was picked up for $838,000 in 1999.
