This photo sold for £4million and some people are angry

This is Phantom, a monochromatic photograph by Peter Lik of a shaft of light in an Arizona canyon.

This week in Las Vegas it was sold to an anonymous, long-time collector of Lik's work for $6.5million (£4.1m), becoming the most expensive photo of all time.

Two other works from Australian-born Lik, Illusion and Eternal Moods, sold for $2.4m (£1.5m) and $1.1m (£700,000) respectively for a total of $10m (£6.4m).

Lik has now taken four of the most expensive photographs in history after his image One - previously the most expensive - sold for $1m in 2011.

The sale of the photo has proven a bit polarising, however...

I've never even heard of him. It's pretty astonishing. I've looked at his work today and, though he's a very good commercial photographer who can take pictures people like, he has no standing whatever in the fine-art world that I belong to.

• Martin Parr, renowned British photographer