The $2.9 million sale of Edward Steichens The PondMoonlight at Sothebys in mid-February had many people wondering if photographys time, in market terms, had come at last. Indeed, in the headline of its feature article exploring the implications of the record-setting deal, The New York Times wrote, Big Sale Spurs Talk of a Photography Gold Rush.

Those hyperbolizing that the sale would lead to a sudden, new market interest in the medium, however, failed to notice a fact evident to anyone who follows the vagaries of the art market: Rather than being an undervalued or neglected area, photography has actually significantly outperformed every other major art medium over the past 15 yearsfrom sculpture to prints to paintings (Click here to see these figures charted out.)

The medium has even proved reliable and well-performing in periods of general downturn, such as the abysmal early 1990s.

So in my view, the hefty price tag on Steichens rare Pondof which there are only three in existenceshould more properly be seen as a symptom of this ongoing growthrather than a likely cause of a near-future pricing explosion.

And its not just the modern and vintage photography represented by Steichen that has seen marked growth (88 percent since October 2001). Contemporary photography, which includes work by emerging artists, has proved to be one of the most buoyant segments of the photography market, according to an Artprice report.

In fact, the record broken by the Steichen was the $1.2 million paid for a work by Richard Prince, the first artist to shatter the six-figure ceiling for a photograph, and whose prices have risen 741 percent over the past 10 years.

Tracking sales of contemporary photography from 1990 to 2005, the Artprice index shows the contemporary sector overall has seen a rise both in the total volume of work sold as well as an accompanying sharp increase in prices, an average annual progression of 11.9 percent over a 15-year period. American photographers have performed especially well.

And while in Steichens day there was virtually no market for the modernist photography that fetches such high-prices today, the opposite is very much true now: The market is eager for the works of contemporary and emerging photographers.

There are a number of young photographers who are deemed hot by the right people, and their prices jump more in a couple of years than it took someone like, say, Harry Callahan to jump in a lifetime, says Stephen Perloff, editor of the Photo Review and the Photograph Collector newsletter, and a respected writer, educator and photographer.

Perloff notes that the entry of contemporary collectors into the photography market has helped push everything up, including the desirability of emerging artists, fueled by the kind of speculative interest that thinks if you miss 10 times but you hit once, youre even.

This has made emerging photographyaesthetically pluralistic, cutting-edge and with the clear incentive of affordabilityone of most in-demand segments of the steadily growing market.

Its a highly desirable part of the market, not only to contemporary art collectors, but also to photography collectors who now are looking for whats next, says Erik Schneider, an Atlanta-based collector of contemporary art and photography.

Those people who are used to collecting modern, black-and-white photography are now also looking at this explosion of new photography. So there are these two types of collectors who are both interested [in emerging photography], Schneider explains.

Its not hard to see why. Emerging photography has all the makings of a potentially profitable and predictable market, particularly for novice collectors: Its affordable and its not prone to wild fluctuation in prices.

It also comes with a high level of market transparency. For example, since there are several editions of most photographs circulating at any given time, especially digitally printed ones in generous editions, they are likely to sell more often than unique paintings. This allows for a level of transparency rare with painting, and thus for more predictable price performancekey for anyone speculating on younger artists.