Photography as Art?

The old joke was that stills photographers are obviously superior to a film crew: it takes a whole bunch of people shooting 24 frames per second to get what a good photographer can get in one shot :lmao:

haha well i def. give you guys credit. im new to still photography and making a piece with symbolism and a theme worth talking about is very different then the way us filmmakers go about it. as a director i get all of the elements through my actors. scene objectives, motivation, and so forth. with photography theres none of that, its all visual, its awsome it has helped my filmmaking quite a bit.
 
I would. Perhaps not for the person filling in the numbers but for the designer of thing in the first place. It may not be good art or fine art but design is always art for me.

Oops, I meant to write "Few would argue that painting ISN'T art." Sorry for that. I was trying to say that most people consider painting (aside from non creative wall and house painting) art, even though anyone can walk into a Hobby Lobby or a Michaels and buy everything necessary to paint and even though a child can do it (usually not with the same results an artist can get), painting is not excluded from "art." Yet the fact that everyone can own a camera seems to be a major factor in excluding photography from "art."

A lot of what people define as art is not beautiful so many would disagree that the definition requires the product to have beauty. Some creations that people define as art are ugly and some disgusting

What I quoted from the dictionary was a very strict definition of art and I found the etymology particularly interesting because it shows how we've evolved the word. Some of the dictionaries defined art as "painting or sculpture." Others included any craft that requires the application of sets of skills or something like that. Very few definitions could be interpretted so narrowly as to exclude photography (or movies). And each person here seemed to have his or her own definition.
 
...just as Duchamp deliberately presented the critics with his "found object". He did it to get the reaction...in this case, the adulation that he knew they would give it. This allowed him to then berate them for their shallowness...and express his disappointment.

Duchamp was actually one of the directors of the group that organised the exhibition (Society For Independent Artists founded in New York) but didn't like the organisation so used one of his 'readymades' (he had already produced a number of them) to goad them. It was, like many of Duchamp's works, a joke with a point.
The fact that it was laid on it's 'back' was so that it would be erect. The signature is a multiple play on words. A number of other artists were in on the joke, offering to buy The Fountain to support the starving artist. And Duchamp wrote a spirited defense of the piece in his magazine The Blind Man (issue 2 in fact).
Even though at least one member of the committee knew Duchamp, none of them recognised it for one of his. Which added to the joke.
The piece was never shown, never mentioned and was misplaced. But it had served it's purpose.
Duchamp's readymades were intended to eliminate the individual, hand-made quality of art and instead assert their own qualities. This is quite important for photography where the ability to make many identical prints from the same neg argued against it being considered as art. Duchamp was on our side.
 
I was trying to say that most people consider painting (aside from non creative wall and house painting) art, even though anyone can walk into a Hobby Lobby or a Michaels and buy everything necessary to paint and even though a child can do it (usually not with the same results an artist can get), painting is not excluded from "art." Yet the fact that everyone can own a camera seems to be a major factor in excluding photography from "art."

Painting has been around for far longer so has established itself.
True, anyone can buy canvas and paint and paint pictures. Many do. But few would consider themselves 'Artists' (as opposed to 'artists') because of the hand-crafted nature of painting. People might slag off a painting saying a child could do it but deep down they know it is not really that easy - as anyone who has tried painting will have discovered.
Photography, on the other hand, is now pretty much foolproof. Press the shutter and you'll get an image. If it's that easy then being a photographer can't be very hard. And the mechanical nature of reproduction excludes it from being art as it doesn't qualify as being handcrafted.
To drive home the point: you rarely get people saying 'I've bought a paint box now can someone tell me how to become a portrait painter?' But if you read the threads here it's a regular occurence for people to buy a camera and then start trying to become a professional.
 
Lately, the attitude is that "If I think it is pretty, then it is art. If I like it, then it is art. The discussion is over,"

It really is subjective.

For personal based reasons, I am a fan of much of Weegee's work, but I doubt that many would identify his photographs as art. However, they are currently on display at the Phoenix Art Museum.

Rusty Tripod
 
I don't argue against that painting is a much finer art than photography and if I am correct I think I see you making the distinction between "art" and "Art" in which case I can very much agree. I'm not inclinded to put even the best photograph on the same level with a painting and the "art" on my walls are paintings (prints: one is limited edition but still a print). But just because it isn't on the same scale as finer arts doesn't exclude it entirely from being an art.

Anyone can take a portrait. Just ask the photographers at Walmart who make a living sporting a pretty camera, chopping off children's extremities and cocking their heads in the most unusual positions that are even more uncomfortable perched on that strange fur covered table.

But if anyone can make a portrait, why do people pay thousands of dollars to have their wedding recorded when for less they could buy cousin Luigi his very own camera and get the same result? Could it be because cousin Luigi doesn't have an artistic eye?

Anyone can take a picture, but why doesn't my sunset look like some I've seen here? Why does one picture of a barn look like a barn and another picture of the same barn looks like a step back in time?

There are paintings and sculptures on Grandma's walls and shelves that are interesting pieces made by little Johnny, but then there are paintings and sculptures that museums fight over. What makes the distinction is not the medium, nor so much the viewer (though a viewer is a factor in whether it is ever appreciated) but the eye and the skill of the person creating it.



A little OT: I also think you see more "have camera, want to start business" because this IS a photography forum. Several people assumed because I wanted to "move closer to pro" (and I discussed "cameras") that I wanted to start a business. I did shoot two weddings, not because I wanted to be a wedding photographer (though it may not be out of the question later on), but because neither couple could afford a professional photographer and my husband was perfoming the ceremony (and because one was my dad). My photos weren't anywhere near pro quality but for free they were well worth it to the couples, who otherwise wouldn't have had any pictures. I loved it and I'd love to do it again with a better camera, but that doesn't mean I want to start a business...it just means I know a lot of poor people, LOL. I had to explain several times that I only wanted to move one step further equipment-wise and learn more, not set up shop, and only then were the dogs called off and I was let in (figuratively). I had found the site by searching for "Amateur photography forum" so I didn't realize there were people who made a living from it on here and didn't think I'd have to explain myself.
 
Lately, the attitude is that "If I think it is pretty, then it is art. If I like it, then it is art. The discussion is over,"

It really is subjective.

For personal based reasons, I am a fan of much of Weegee's work, but I doubt that many would identify his photographs as art. However, they are currently on display at the Phoenix Art Museum.

Rusty Tripod


What exactly would disqualify his work as art? I only saw part of it just now and I like it (not what I am using as criteria for art, mind you). I'm curious about his "Distortions" series. Obviously the Museum saw art in his work. Why do you think few would call it art?
 
I'd still like to see some examples of photographs that people consider to be art and photographs that aren't art. I'm interested to see where different people place the 'art' value of a photograph.

There are a number of factors that determine whether an object is Art or not, and these apply to Photography in the same way as to all other Art forms.
The problem is that these 'rules' are difficult to explain as they are fuzzy. The most you can ever do is take your best guess.
But there are some guidelines that help. For example:
Art proper tends to be about ideas. The piece of art is usually just an attempt to make the idea 'real'. And it might not be very good but it is the concept behind it that is important.
Art proper tends to have no real function other than to voice the artist's idea(s). This means that a picture that is commissioned and produced with the sole purpose of selling fish fingers is almost certainly not going to be Art proper - although it might be artistic.
Art can have an effect on the rest of Art if the idea is ground-breaking enough. See Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

The whole notion of what is and what is not Art is something that is not easy to get to grips with. People who have studied Art in College for years are loath to try to define it.
And real artists aren't concerned with it. They know that the only true test of Art is posterity, so let future generations decide in retrospect if it's Art.

As for photographs as Art try Man Ray, Robert Demachy, Frederic Holland Day, Paul Strand....
So to get you started:
http://www.richardmoorephoto.com/photopages/demachy_pic1.html
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=2036
 
Okay. Can we firstly get back to photography as art and forget about all the other art mediums and the way they pushed the boundaries. Interesting, and the point has been made, but it has no further place in this thread.

The Two links given in the previous post are good examples of photographic art that has been established and accepted as art. I'd like to see your examples of photography that isn't art also.

Art is all about breaking rules and pushing boundaries to a certain extent. Personally, I believe anyone can be an artist. Anyone can do the art they want to do. Whether others think it's good or, not is irrelevant.

We are all artists. Some of us are happy to please ourselves, others need to communicate ideas to a broader audience.

Possibly?
 
I prefer to look at art from the point of view of what it does rather than how it was made. If you look at the history of art through its many twist an turns and the way opinions are created, destroyed, and recreated, in the end you will stand scratching your head wondering, like Ruyard Kipling, just exactly what art is. Once upon a time, art was in fact "craft", and the highest form of art was the ability to use rare and expensive paints. Today, art distances itself from any sort of craft in a mad scramble to separate itself from exactly such tools as the camera. Artists are told at galleries that their paintings should show as little evidence of craft as possible, and the possibility of a work being labelled with the tag "craft" is the deathknell for an artist. But are the public convinced? Look at Disney, Ansel Adams, and Ken Rockwell... clearly the general public has their own opinions of art remote from those of art critics and professionals.

This all leads me to my personal belief that in the end, what is art should be reflected on what it accomplishes rather than how it was done. If a painting was done using elephant turd (yes, there was one recently) then the question should not be "is elephant turd a suitable medium for art" but rather "does the painting accomplish the objectives it set out"?

When I see a photograph, and the photograph accomplishes nothing, it doesn't look nice, it doesn't tell a story, then to me, it has no merit. If a photograph is able to convey a story, then it becomes a narrative medium. Photographs are able to tell stories very very well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Is that art? Well do you consider literature a form of art? If so then yes. If on the other hand, the photograph's main accomplishment is to look nice, then it might be considered "craft" or perhaps "pop art." A picture of cuddly kittens rolled up into a ball, is very nice, but perhaps won't get your photo into the Chicago Art Institute. Perhaps the goal of photography should ultimately aspire to "fine art" but what exactly does that mean? From my experiences, fine art usually conveys a deeper meaning that what is apparent on the surface. It touches the human spirit deeper inside and every time you look at the picture, it should speak to you in new ways. There should be some level of abstraction, and the narrative of the photograph is as important as the artistic merit - hence photographers often spend hours or days puzzling over exactly how to caption their photos in gallery displays. Is it art, if a photograph can do all that? I would certainly think so, but it is hard, very hard to accomplish that. I do not think that it is necessarily harder to do that with a camera than with a paint brush but the thing about a camera is that it is seductive to go the other way. When you have a camera it is too terribly easy to just take a pleasing photo, it takes merely milliseconds... a painter takes hours planning his picture and then days to months executing. The last thing that painter wants is a imperfect composition or someone telling him a photo would have done the job better. Then again, that is part of the challenge of photography bec we have to work with time, and we don't have the luxury of putting things exactly how we want (unless its a studio composition).

As examples of how photograpy can change the way we view the world, look at how photography even influences painting. Photorealists try to imitate the camera, and concepts such as focus, motion blur, etc... that did not exist before photography are now used in all forms of art, fine or otherwise. Richard Avedon when he made his controversial photos of his father dying of cancer, gave in the photos a quiet dignity to his ailing father, something that was better captured in his photos than could have been in any other medium. I'm probably going to make a few enemies by saying this but I feel that perhaps Ansel Adams, whom is universally adored by photographers, is closer to craft than art. He has a system which is used to good effect to capture the moment of nature, but for me personally it doesn't go beyond that. It is a pleasant picture. I'm not saying that is bad or good, this isn't judgement and he is clearly a master, but current opinions of fine art eschews mere "beauty" and requires of the artist more, the ability to provoke thought and discussion. P.S. please noone tell me that Richard Avedon is famous primarily for his photos of semi-nude models in Vogue... I am well aware, and I am mainly referring to his other work that he did :)

Anyway this is just my opinion. I think that the opinion of ppl on photography as "low art" is bec they see so much of photography being used that way. And easy access to a camera means everyone with $200 and access to a computer can take and print their own photos. If that is all they see, no wonder they think of photography that way! It would take some education as to what photography can truly achieve in order to elevate it to the higher status that other art forms attain.
 
Say no more, say no more. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat.
 

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