£20,000

At Somerset House, where Photo London is being held.

A lot of the photos exhibited were, frankly, underwhelming but there were some highlights, like Henri Cartier-Bresson (sprinkled across several exhibitors' selections), Mona Kuhn and Stephen Wilkes (pictured in one of the extras). L, who I went with, thought Wilkes's work gimmicky but I rather liked it. I agree with her, though, that his presence in the room detracted from his art — his monologue/dialogue (L's description was a tad more colourful) about his work took focus away from the photographs.

The most impressive work was Sohei Nishino's diorama map of London (also in the extras). It was genuinely awesome, in the word's pre-colloquial sense.

There were also screenings and talks (and a signing by Steve McCurry!) but we didn't attend any. Some of them looked interesting to me but L dismissed them with the same colourful description (starts with 'w' and ends with 'anking on'). Oh well.

We also discussed whether the photographs on display were worth their price tags, which ranged from £1,000 to upwards of £20,000. I certainly wouldn't pay £20,000 for a photograph unless I struck the lottery, but I think some of them are worth the price. As is usually the case for me, I think it boils down to supply and demand. L thinks there is an artificiality to that demand, in that it's really about a small group of people (galleries, curators, critics, etc.) telling buyers what's worth buying, rather than buyers buying what they genuinely like.

I asked her jokingly as we left whether I could sell a print of this photo for £20,000 — to which she said I would struggle to sell it for a pound. Time to pack it in then!