NEW YORK— In celebration of its 30th anniversary, the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) is paying homage to innovation in the medium at its annual show this year. For “Innovation: An Exhibition Within an Exhibition,” each exhibitor at the fair was asked to select one image from their offerings that represents a milestone in photography — “from daguerreotype to digital,” as newly elected AIPAD president Stephen Bulger describes it. The works were then collected chronologically in a small catalog produced by Aperture and called out with special signage throughout the show, taking place at the Park Avenue Armory through Sunday.

The brainchild of gregarious Chelsea photo dealer W.M. Hunt, the initiative was driven by a longtime “frustration with the schizophrenic nature of the fair,” which some see as divided between vintage prints and forward-thinking contemporary work, with a gulf in between. “I wanted to give context to the contemporary stuff,” he told ARTINFO. “Make it all of a piece.”

Perhaps inevitably, though, the split was still in evidence among the fair’s 70-some booths, with splashy, mostly large-format new works distracting from the smaller gems in abundance. But in this rough economy, it’s those black-and-white treasures, often tucked away in the furthest corners of the booths, that seem to be moving, if slowly.

People feel safer right now investing in “things that have stood the test of time,” according to Magdalena Zopf of Paris’s Serge Plantureux. Most of the dealers ARTINFO spoke with agreed, and indeed, Plantureux’s booth, filled to the brim with quality vintage images, boasted a few red dots on ARTINFO’s opening-day visit: Two film stills dated 1940–44 from Leni Riefenstahl’s Tiefland, showing gypsies “borrowed” from a concentration camp for the shoot, then returned afterward, had gone for $6,000; and a 1930 shot by Evgueni Yavno of Stalin, his son, and several comrades had sold for $22,000. Zopf said that things were “still moving” and that when it comes to vintage photography, people “will do what they can to buy the things they love.”

By contrast, New York’s Bruce Silverstein Gallery was showcasing its younger photographers, with the outside of its booth dominated by a new work by New York–based Maria Antonietta Mameli: Human Observation — Grand Central Station #10 (2008), a 40-by-48-inch print priced at $6,000, in an edition of 3 plus 2 artist proofs. Mameli’s spartan, isolated figures made a splash at the fair last year, and Human Observation, like the earlier work, similarly spotlights a figure in motion — here a woman in a red dress and heels — this time masking the surroundings in a sea of black rather than white. Still, the sales the gallery had to report when ARTINFO stopped by were from its stock of vintage prints, running in the $5,000-to-$10,000 range.

On the higher end was New York dealer Robert Miller, whose booth boasted six Walker Evans Africana images from his 1935 project with the Museum of Modern Art, a vintage print of Diane Arbus’s Young Man in Curlers at Home on West 20th St. (1966), a series of 1978 Sigmar Polke images from his “Indians” series, a stunning Bill Henson portrait of a child (this one dressed), and a unique Jeff Wall test print of Man in the Street from 1985 priced near the top of the AIPAD spectrum, at $125,000. There was interest in several of the works on display but “no bites at this point,” a gallery representative said.

Miller wasn’t alone. One dealer, when asked what she’d sold, replied: “Off the record? Nothing. On the record? Nothing.”

That said, gallerists seemed mostly optimistic about the fair, saying that the crowd on opening night had been “the right crowd,” with lots of curators, photo editors, and important collectors.

Eric Franck of London was taking the long view, emphasizing that the fair is also about meeting people and setting exhibitions and book deals in motion. “If one does sell, one is always happy,” he said, “but that is not the main objective.” He was showcasing images from Lottie Davies, among them Quints (2008), which recently won the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize from London's National Portrait Gallery. Part of an intended 12-work series titled “Memories and Nightmares,” the picture, priced at $4,000 and measuring 16 3/4 by 39 3/8 inches in an edition of 10, depicts a friend’s nightmare that she would have quintuplets. It hadn’t sold yet, but two editions of another work in the series, The Day My Brother Was Born, had, at the same price.

“Photography is still at an attractive price point compared to other media,” said New York dealer Robert Burge. “My friends at Pace tell me that they can still sell things if they’re under $100,000. Well, here almost everything is under $100,000.” Burge was showing some of the most striking new work at the fair, beautifully detailed shots of different species of dragonflies taken by John Woolf, a photography specialist at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Priced at $1,500 in editions of 25, none had sold yet, but interest was high.

The booth of Chelsea’s Danziger Projects was generating a lot of buzz as well, featuring penetrating images of Malian families by Seydou Keita, for $8,000; unusual pictures of an albino model by New York photographer Tanyth Berkeley; and glitzy portraits by Annie Leibovitz, all priced at $7,500. The Leibovitzes, none of which had sold, included a scantily clad Scarlett Johansson, in an edition of 25, and a unique portrait of our new president. On the floor, Danziger also had the shot, by AP photographer Manny Garcia, on which Shepard Fairey controversially based his ubiquitous Obama “Hope” image (and which has gotten Danziger lots of attention as of late). Priced at $1,200 in an edition of 200, none had sold at the fair, despite success at the gallery, gallery owner James Danziger said. Instead, he’d had luck with “a dozen or so mostly vintage” prints averaging about $5,000 apiece.

Lee Marks, of Lee Marks Fine Art from Shelbyville, Ind., was having no problems with her Obama image, one of the most talked-about pictures of the fair. Recently featured in the New Yorker, the work, Barack and Michelle Obama, Chicago, Illinois, 26 May 1998 is from a book project about American couples that photographer Mariana Cook did in the 1990s, but wasn't included in the finished product. Marks had gelatin-silver prints available in three sizes starting at prices ranging from $3,200 to $12,000. Nine had sold as of this writing.

The youngest gallery at the fair was the two-year-old Higher Pictures, located on New York’s Upper East Side, which was having success with works by Jaimie Warren. The young Kansas City photographer has passers-by capture her in humorous candid-looking shots that were selling quickly at $150 a pop in editions of 15. Interestingly, though, gallerist Kim Bourus was most actively promoting vintage work: gritty street scenes captured by the underknown, self-taught photographer Jill Freedman in the 1960s and ’70s. The most powerful of these was Pieta, NYC (1978), which captures in black-and-white a young man holding his unconscious brother-in-law after nearly killing him with a piece of pipe in a fight. It was installed on the outside of the booth and priced at $8,000.

Fair fixture Lisa Sette of Scottsdale, Ariz., had what can only be described as the coolest work at the fair (so cool the dealer just had one mounted in her own house): installations by Arizona artist Alan Bur Johnson made up of dozens of small circular, metal-rimmed tags filled with photographic transparencies of MRIs and insect wings, then tacked to the wall in different compositions. Aereus (2009), a unique work priced at $3,800, takes the rough shape of the Milky Way. Also on view was a selection of Vietnamese-born Binh Dahn’s innovative “chlorophyll prints,” which are made by laying a large negative on a bed of leaves or other organic material in the sun for as long as is necessary to transfer the image, usually of a Buddha or other Eastern icon, onto the leaves.

First-time exhibitor Miller Block of Boston was also displaying compelling, innovative work, including several images by New York–based Lori Nix, who creates and shoots elaborate models of interiors so realistic you can’t tell they’re models. The standout of these was the duskily lit, 40-by-50-inch Laundromat (2008), which presents sagging ceiling tile, a dirty checkerboard tile floor, and miniature washing machines with spice jar lids for doors, on offer for $5,000. The gallery hadn’t sold anything yet, but owner Ellen Miller wasn’t sure if that was because her artists — all process-oriented — are somewhat outside of the norm or because of the economy. Still, she was happy to have the new audience, especially after sitting out this year’s “undersold” Works on Paper fair. “I don’t think you can count on good sales at a fair,” she said. “So you need to at least make sure the exposure’s good.”

Another dealer delighted to be at AIPAD was New York’s Andrea Meislin, who, after celebrating her fifth year in business, was finally considered eligible to join the association. Sales at her booth had been “surprisingly positive,” she said: She’d parted with four works by Paris-based Lillian Birnbaum at $2,000 a pop and a portrait by Israeli Michal Chelbin at $8,500. Still, Meislin seemed most pleased to be at the fair for the community, and the opportunities to meet with colleagues and discuss technical and ethical issues and dealing practices. She’s done a lot of fairs, but AIPAD is “the gold standard,” she said. No matter which side of the gulf you fall on.