These days, even in the newsfeeds of media outlets that do not specialize in art topics, we see notes from time to time noting the high value of individual photographic works. Indeed, the art photography market continues to evolve, and the sales records that are being set are the results of high valuation of photographic works according to a number of criteria. Among them are such criteria as relevance of creative approach, compliance of technical execution with modern requirements, impressive creative biography of the author and many other parameters. However, as photographers love to point out, in some cases the high price is really formed solely on the basis of the buyer's personal preferences, which are little known to anyone.

As an example, I will cite a case I encountered in my own practice a few years ago. Together with my father we had a meeting in Klaipeda with a famous representative of Lithuanian art photography, Vaclovas Straukas, the purpose of which was to purchase works from his author's archive. After reviewing several hundred photographic prints and choosing those that, from our point of view of art history, were the most interesting, we were about to close the deal. At the last moment, however, the author drew our attention to a work which, at first glance, was of no interest and did not merit our attention. It seemed rather primitive, with nothing but a brood of geese shot quite standard in terms of composition. To my and my father's surprise, Straukas called this the most expensive work of his entire collection. To understand the reasons for this "inflated" price was helped by the story told by the author. It turned out that when Straukas' personal exhibition was held in London in 1980, an identical photo print was purchased in the collection of Queen Elizabeth II, who for reasons known only to her, saw in the "types" of a brood of geese "portraits" of members of the royal family. Of course, no art historian would have been able to guess this direction of interpretation of the subject. Nevertheless, we did acquire Straukas' only remaining print of the Geese.

Artem Loginov, for "History of One Photo"