The Complete Collector’s Guide to Photographic Prints

Although the earliest known photograph was created between 1826-27 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, the birth of the photographic medium is generally dated to 1839, when Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre publicly announced the daguerreotype process. This groundbreaking method, which produced sharp, detailed images on silver-plated copper, quickly captured the public imagination and led to a rapid expansion of photographic practice. As the first widely accessible photographic technique, the daguerreotype marked a turning point in visual culture, even as other innovators, such as William Henry Fox Talbot soon introduced alternative processes that would further shape the medium’s development.

Photography first gained momentum in the 19th century as a scientific and commercial innovation. It was used to document the world with unprecedented precision, whether through Étienne-Jules Marey’s motion studies that laid groundwork for both biomechanics and cinema, or Carleton Watkins’ sweeping photographs of the American West, which paved the way for Ansel Adams and influenced both public perception and even national policy on conservation. At the same time, photography’s potential as an art form began to emerge. Turn of the century artists like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen embraced soft, expressive, painterly styles that emphasized craftsmanship and emotional depth. Stieglitz, in particular, played a central role in establishing photography as a serious artistic medium, founding galleries, camera clubs and publications, and promoting Pictorialism as part of the broader legacy of modern art, alongside figures like Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse and Georgia O’Keeffe.

By the 20th century, photography turned increasingly self-reflective, evolving through new technologies and artistic experimentation. The invention of the Kodak #1 camera in 1888 revolutionized photography by making it accessible to amateurs, with preloaded film and factory processing. This democratization of image-making stood in contrast to the refined aesthetic of Pictorialism, yet it inspired new directions. Photographers like Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange harnessed the raw, documentary power of the medium, capturing everyday American life, particularly during the Great Depression, with emotional and poetic clarity.

While color had previously been meticulously added to daguerreotypes as well as paper-based prints by hand, the invention and widespread adoption of color film in the mid-20th century opened further creative possibilities. Photographers such as William Eggleston, Stephen Shore and Helen Levitt embraced color as an expressive tool, reshaping the visual language of photography. Today, in the digital era, photography continues to evolve, challenging traditional ideas of representation. By exploring iconic photographic methods and the artists who pioneered them, we can gain a deeper understanding of why this relatively nascent way of making images is one of the most valuable and spectacular to collect.

Photographs

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Throughout its relatively short history, myriad kinds of photographic technologies have developed. Initial daguerreotypes were made by exposing an image directly onto a plate, while many subsequent photographic images are made via distinct chemical processes – preparing a negative, exposing the image and developing it as a print. Discoveries in each of these methods make for an endlessly generative medium.

Here’s a brief introduction to some of the most common photographic methods.

The gelatin silver print (sometimes called the silver-gelatin print) was the dominant photographic process of the 20th century, defining the look of both fine art and commercial photography. Known for its rich tonal range, sharp detail and archival stability, it became the medium of choice for photographers seeking precision and expressive control.

In this process, light passes through a camera lens onto silver halide-coated film, producing a negative. That negative is then used in the darkroom to expose light-sensitive gelatin-silver paper, typically via an enlarger, before being chemically developed into a final black-and-white print.

Among its most celebrated practitioners was Edward Weston, who used an 8-by-10-inch view camera to create contact prints – prints made by placing the negative directly against the paper rather than enlarging it. The result was extraordinary clarity and detail. Weston’s images of shells, vegetables, nudes and landscapes emphasized pure form and texture, showing how gelatin silver printing could elevate even the simplest subject to a work of art.

Gelatin silver prints were the primary method of making photographic prints during the 20th century, with countless artists relying on the medium to present their images. Walker Evans, Dorthea Lange and Robert Frank are known for their travels across the United States, presenting their findings of a country plagued by social strife, poverty and isolation through gelatin silver prints. Central to the expansion and acceptance of the photographic medium as an artform, gelatin silver prints retain a timeless immediacy and preciousness when examined in person – particularly special in the digital age.

While black-and-white gelatin silver prints defined much of photography’s early history, the advent of color processes opened new creative possibilities. Methods like chromogenic prints (often abbreviated as c-prints), Cibachrome prints and dye-transfer prints use layers of cyan, magenta and yellow to produce full-color images.

While color initially was met with skepticism by many, that changed with Stephen Shore’s adoption of chromogenic printing and William Eggleston’s mastery of the dye-transfer process. Eggleston’s groundbreaking 1976 exhibition at MoMA, the museum’s first dedicated to color photography, cemented color’s place in fine art, with dye-transfer prints at its center.

Chromogenic prints are also closely associated with the large-scale, hyper-detailed work of the Düsseldorf School, including Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff and Candida Höfer. Cibachrome, known for its rich hues and gloss, was famously used by Nan Goldin, Andreas Serrano and Louise Lawler, whose elaborately staged, cinematic tableaus pushed photography into new conceptual territory. Though now discontinued, Cibachrome remains prized for its visual impact and rarity.

During the 2000s, digital photography emerged as the dominant mode of image capture. While analog film still holds a deserved popularity among photographers, the accessibility of digital formats makes it a contemporary go-to for both amateurs and artists alike. The exposure process is mostly the same in analogue and digital cameras, with light traveling through a lens to meet a reactive surface; however, instead of a chemical process, the light meets with digital sensors.

Printing digital images remains a chemical, mechanical process. Digital inkjet prints are among the most common, using printers (just like the one in your home or office) to spray microscopic dots of ink onto paper. Archival pigment prints utilize the same technology, except using an ink that’s less prone to degrading over time. (You might also come across the term giclée, which is simply a neologism used to market inkjet prints by giving them a sophisticated-sounding name; collectors generally prefer a more specific designation.)

The flexibility of digital photography and printing allows for more artistic leeway in terms of experimentation and a crispness of the image, which is something the artist Wolfgang Tillmans has capitalized on. As one of the most prominent contemporary photographers who has been producing work for decades, Tillmans bridges the gap between digital and analog. The artist’s later digital photography (circa 2012 and beyond) ranges from highly detailed, diaristic images of his life in various bohemian queer communities, which transform everyday scenes into works of art. Tillmans also utilizes the high resolution of digital cameras to create experimental, mesmerizing abstractions derived from real life and print them at remarkable scale.

Many other renowned artists who also began their careers with analog photography have produced spectacular digital prints, including Laurie Simmons, Gregory Crewdson and Andreas Gursky, thereby expanding their distinct aesthetics into new masterpieces.

While a camera might seem like a prerequisite for photography, there is actually a rich and spectacular history of cameraless photos. By placing objects onto light-sensitive paper and briefly exposing them to light, a unique silhouette of the object is left on the paper when it is developed. What makes this method even more exceptional is that it is genuinely unique, producing one-of-a-kind images.

Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy were two of the leading practitioners of the photogram, though they used the technique for distinct purposes. Man Ray began making photograms in Paris in 1922, coining the term “rayographs” to brand his own version. Rooted in Dada and Surrealism, his compositions featured everyday objects – pins, combs, nails, even a gun – arranged to create dreamlike, enigmatic silhouettes that played with light, shadow and abstraction. In contrast, Moholy-Nagy, a key figure at the Bauhaus, approached photograms as a study in geometry and perception. His works emphasized formal harmony and structure, reflecting the school’s modernist ideals and its emphasis on the integration of art, science and technology.

While Ray and Moholy-Nagy popularized photograms in the 20th century, the technique has earlier roots. In the 1840s, British botanist Anna Atkins used cyanotypes (a specific type of photogram) to document algae and other plant specimens. By placing botanical samples on sensitized paper and exposing them to sunlight, she created delicate, blue-toned silhouettes. Atkins is now recognized as one of the first practitioners of photographic illustration, and her work helped lay the foundation for cameraless photography, as well as the origin of the term “blueprint.”

While many alternative photographic processes originated in the 19th century, they have found renewed relevance in 20th- and 21st-century art. These techniques, which range from cyanotypes, tintypes and gum bichromate prints to more recent innovations like the Polaroids, offer tactile, hands-on methods that emphasize materiality, chance and experimentation.

One of the most widespread modern uses of an alternative process is found in the Polaroid, a form of instant photography that reached global popularity in the mid-20th century. Though originally developed for consumer use, Polaroid film became a powerful creative tool for artists. Andy Warhol famously used a Polaroid camera to photograph everyone from Dolly Parton to Jean-Michel Basquiat. These portraits, with their flat lighting and frontal compositions, became an essential part of Warhol’s practice. Similarly, many fashion and portrait photographers, including Paolo Roversi used Polaroids for test shots before formal sessions.

Beyond Polaroids, many contemporary artists have embraced historical processes. Ambrotypes, originally used for 19th-century portraiture, have seen a resurgence through artists such as Sally Mann, whose haunting, large-format images evoke the ghostly presence of the past.

While photographs may seem like a mirror, reflecting our world back, there is so much more to the care and technical skill artists put into their work. Rather than merely imitating everything around us, these still pictures enhance it, capturing arresting moments in time that prompt us to reflect on the extraordinary ways the world can be depicted.

Prints

The Complete Collector’s Guide to Prints