Napalm

This print is catalogued as Napalm and as Can't Beat That Feeling, and both names are in active use across salerooms, dealers and price databases.

An owner searching under one name sees a different set of results from an owner searching under the other, and a work catalogued under the less common name can attract less attention in a sale than it should. When we look at comparables for this image we look under both, and it is worth checking which name a saleroom intends to use before a consignment is agreed.

The image is built on one of the most recognised war photographs ever taken, and it is deliberately difficult. That is the point of it, and it has a commercial consequence worth stating plainly.

Some buyers will not hang it. Institutional and corporate buyers in particular tend to pass, and that narrows the pool in a way that does not apply to the lighter images in the output. It does not make the print less valuable — it is a strong work with a committed following — but it does mean the sale route matters more, and a private sale to a buyer who wants this specific image can outperform a general saleroom.

This is a busier image than most of the 2004 group, which forgives surface marks slightly better than a flat two-colour print does.

It does not forgive the things nothing forgives: trimmed margins, tape staining that has migrated to the front, fading, or a crease that has broken the ink film. Photograph the full sheet and the reverse, and get the pencil line close enough to read.