Photography as Art?

"I have yet been exposed to finger painting of children which stir an emotion ... but then I'm probably an bit more jaded than most."

LOL Don't you have any kids?

"As to using "photos as words from a dictionary", that is the concept behind photo journalism. Reporters paint an image using words ... photogs tell a story using pictures. One reason why most major market media orgainizations require a degree in communications/journalism for their photogs ... because for them it isn't about phortography ... it is about the ability to capture and tell the story."


Also true except that Photo Journalists are supposed to only portray what is factual. The artist may use what is factual, proverbial, contrived or completely cobbled together to convey ideas, ideals or points of view that may have no bearing what so ever to anything previously existent.

It's in the margins of 'Photographic License' that artistic communication is made and as the guy walking through the woods would have said, "And that has made all the difference.".

mike
 
Here's an interesting read for anyone interested in photography and art:

http://www.alexalienart.com/Bacon%20News%20Archive.htm

Francis Bacon and Henri Cartier-Bresson.


Found it on another forum where a poster asked the question
Francis Bacon understood photography in a way better than Cartier-Bresson?
My thoughts:

I don't think the comparison is judging either on their ability to photograph, it's stating that they were very different artists.

HCB was a prolific photo-journalist/documentary photographer. He was also a very clever marketeer.

Bacon was a genius portrait artist. His work is more about the individual rather than a study of humanity as a whole. He pushed the boundaries of art a came up with new ideas. Cartier-Bresson was very much working to an established format.

Two very different artists working in very different fields for very different clientele.


e2a; Can't see any reason for banning me. I'm no fan of the sterile world of censored web forums. Have you got anything worthwhile to add to this thread?
 
"People who wouldn't think of taking a sieve to the well to draw water fail to see the folly in taking a camera to make a painting."
 
"People who wouldn't think of taking a sieve to the well to draw water fail to see the folly in taking a camera to make a painting."

But, it isn't about making a painting - it's about making photographic art.

I've seen plenty of photographs that are as equally charged with feelings as paintings. This again illustrates the problem. Some people refuse to give art photography any time or, any artistic merit simply because it's a photograph and 'anyone can take a photograph'. That is the folly.

The 'reality' of photography as an art medium is what makes it so appealing to myself, yet for others it seems to be the biggest put-off. The reality should make it art that is more accessible to the viewer. Far less challenging than an abstract painting possibly. I've viewed many photographs that take me on a long journey of contemplative thought for example. If a photograph can take me beyond the immediate image I'm prepared to give it more time and enjoy it.
 
Edward Weston made that statement in 1943 with much the same issues and with "photography as art" being much younger than today. Today, it should be a non-issue whether photography is or is not art compared to other visual arts or on its own terms, the masters before us have made that statement in their work, and not recognizing that is the folly of today. Then, at the start that is, photographers had no tradition so they fell on the traditions of painters, which laid the ground work for the attitudes that persist today and delayed the recognition photography as art. If someone who is a true lover of art, or artist themselves fail to recognize photography as a visual art, they have failed themselves to grow as a person, which is what it all is truely about, not art, not a particular medium, the work that results from that growth and discovery is the bonus.
"an artist, whose only agony is to grow." e.e.cummings

"Man is the actual medium of expression, not the tool he elects to use as a means."
 
For moi, one of the criterium for "art" is that it evokes emotion(s), whether it's music, paintings, sculpture, et al. But exceptional journalistic images also evokes emotions ... Flag Raising on Iwo Jima, Kent State, Tsunami victims, Olympic Champions, et cetera ... but those pictures are not art ... okay .. just talked myself into an understanding ... just because something creates emotions doesn't qualify it as an art piece ... one must set out and preconceive/create a piece which installs emotion ... not capture a scene which is charged with emotion in which the photog had no imput.

Gary

Susan Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others enters into the quandary of art and/as documentary photography.

I've got an anecdote involving Pablo Neruda on the tip of my tongue...about guilt felt in feeling the need to be creative in describing the Spanish Civil war...but I can't seem to remember the particulars. (I know, this was enormously unhelpful...eh?)

Cheers
 
"The visual arts are involved with feeling. If one has ideas to express the proper medium is language." the great art historian, Sir Herbert Read

I'm struggling with this. Why are ideas supposedly better expressed through language? What if you're not so eloquent in your language skills? Say, you're better at explaining your new idea through visuals.

That quote is total and utter crap to my way of thinking. Language has to be the oldest idea of all. Ug!
 
...

I've got an anecdote involving Pablo Neruda on the tip of my tongue...about guilt felt in feeling the need to be creative in describing the Spanish Civil war...but I can't seem to remember the particulars. (I know, this was enormously unhelpful...eh?)

Cheers

You're rubbish. Do the Googling for us before you post next time :D
 
I'm of the opinion that you need a great eye and great technical ability to be a great photographer (that is, to have intentionality and a useful measure of control over your images). If you have neither, you will always be poor. If you have one or the other, then you may be particularly suited to specific types of photography. And if you have both, then the sky's the limit.

Who cares about art.

I actually agree with that.

Photography is widely viewed as an art form, just like paintings, sculptures, drawings, and architecture. Not every building is going to be admired for its artistic side, but some are. Not every person is using photography as a means of artistic expression but some will and will succeed at it.

Is a mom snapping pictures of the kids creating art in the process? Sure, why not? Photography is a form of art. It might not be something that people will want to buy or pay lots of money for or hang it on a wall. But she thought about what she wanted it to look like before she clicked that button.
 
I'm of the opinion that you need a great eye and great technical ability to be a great photographer (that is, to have intentionality and a useful measure of control over your images). If you have neither, you will always be poor. If you have one or the other, then you may be particularly suited to specific types of photography. And if you have both, then the sky's the limit.

Not actually true.
I have known many photographers who were extremely good technically, had a good eye and were very creative but who never made it.
And I've known some were not very good and had no creativity you could mention but who made themselves very successful commercially.
Ability and creativity are not recognised by the majority because they do not know what it looks like.
What makes you successful is the ability to sell yourself and being a complete and utter b*stard. Believe me, I've seen it at first hand.

You can see the principle at work in Photography just as you can in any other Art form.
Ansel Adams and HCB are always mentioned as being 'great'. But there have been a great many other photographers who were better but nobody knows them. This is because AA and HCB were good at selling themselves and surrounded themselves with mystique.
AA always promoted himself as a technical wizard but, whilst he did take the technical aspects to extremes a lot of it was also b.s. It was part of the image he used to sell himself.
If you look at most of his pictures and ignore the technical aspect you find them to be pretty pedestrian mostly. There are one or two good ones - but a lot are nothing special. And some had already been done by earlier photographers.
HCB did the same, only he replaced technical ability with 'magic'. The mystery of 'The Decisive Moment' came about by a mis-translation of his first book title, but he siezed upon it and used it to his own ends. He was always vague about what it actually meant. And he never let anyone photograph him. His picture in Dialogue With Photography is a drawing. What a poseur.
He did take some excellent shots but he also took an awful lot that were pedestrian. But you don't see those unless you go looking.
Now I'm not trying to put these guys down. I'm just pointing out that a lot of what makes them household names is to do with their ability to sell themselves.
And, of course, marketing departments turning their work into calendars. ;)
 
Does a photograph have to be technically perfect (technically superior, or even above average technically speaking), to be good or to be considered art?
How do you measure the level of 'technical greatness'? Taking the digital medium just as an example surely there are vast changes in the technology and therefore the quality of the resulting photos? Does that mean that the previous versions are no longer viewed as credible art?
If as some people claim, film is obsolete and dying, than do those old film prints hold a candle to the 'new wave' of photography?

(Not being of a very high caliber myself) Some of my favorite personal shots have been more accidental than ordinary.

Who's to say that some of the most famous photographs weren't themselves accidents? Were if you one of those greats admit to the accident? NO!

When did the ego merge with photography? Surely when photography was first about photographers didn't cut each other down on technical flaws? "That's wonderful Bob, but you could have used an extra bit of exposure" I'm betting they were in awe of what they were doing.
"Look I made that tree over there appear on this paper!"



....as an aside, I'm sleepy and starting to ramble, don't mind me if I make no sense :lol:
 
Not actually true.
I have known many photographers who were extremely good technically, had a good eye and were very creative but who never made it.
And I've known some were not very good and had no creativity you could mention but who made themselves very successful commercially.
Ability and creativity are not recognised by the majority because they do not know what it looks like.
What makes you successful is the ability to sell yourself and being a complete and utter b*stard. Believe me, I've seen it at first hand.

You can see the principle at work in Photography just as you can in any other Art form.
Ansel Adams and HCB are always mentioned as being 'great'. But there have been a great many other photographers who were better but nobody knows them. This is because AA and HCB were good at selling themselves and surrounded themselves with mystique.
AA always promoted himself as a technical wizard but, whilst he did take the technical aspects to extremes a lot of it was also b.s. It was part of the image he used to sell himself.
If you look at most of his pictures and ignore the technical aspect you find them to be pretty pedestrian mostly. There are one or two good ones - but a lot are nothing special. And some had already been done by earlier photographers.
HCB did the same, only he replaced technical ability with 'magic'. The mystery of 'The Decisive Moment' came about by a mis-translation of his first book title, but he siezed upon it and used it to his own ends. He was always vague about what it actually meant. And he never let anyone photograph him. His picture in Dialogue With Photography is a drawing. What a poseur.
He did take some excellent shots but he also took an awful lot that were pedestrian. But you don't see those unless you go looking.
Now I'm not trying to put these guys down. I'm just pointing out that a lot of what makes them household names is to do with their ability to sell themselves.
And, of course, marketing departments turning their work into calendars. ;)


Disagree about Adams. Adams was light years ahead of the competition. Even by todays standards his stuff is good ... back in his days it was stellar. Eisenstaedt was completely blown away the first time he saw an Adams.

As for Cartier-Bresson I tend to agree. His philosophy was superior to his images. By todays standards most of HCB's stuff is less than pedestrian ... back in his day it was good. HBC was all about Magnum, he was surrounded by talent, Capa, Rodgers, et al, so much of marketing himself was also marketing Magnum. But any professional photo journalist who viewed the world only through a 50mm was not capitalizing on technology (lol) ... and seriously limiting their own images and creativity as well as hurting the agency.

Gary

PS- Like HCB, when in my youth ego was stronger than quiet dignity ... I also filed out my negative carrier. *sigh*
G
28693850-M.jpg
 
Disagree about Adams. Adams was light years ahead of the competition. Even by todays standards his stuff is good ... back in his days it was stellar.

AA did indeed take some good pictures - but they are mostly not the ones that have been used to 'sell' him commercially.
And Adams only managed to do a lot of what he did because he was standing on the shoulders of people like Weston. I seem to remember that AA's Zone System was originally formulated by Weston - Adams just refined it.
If you look at the landscape work of Watkins, Muybridge and O'Sullivan you will see that they were taking pictures pretty much the same as the bulk of AA's work. In fact some of the shots are almost identical. The major difference, of course, is in the technical execution but a lot this is down to W, M and O working with wet plate collodion (60 or 70 years before Adams).
I'm not trying to put AA down - just put him into perspective. There is a whole thread devoted to this discussion in here somewhere.

'Light years ahead of the competition'? He was competing with Weston, Strand, Stieglitz and many other greats. On a par would be nearer the mark. And it is a tribute to AA's PR skills that he is remembered whereas they are largely forgotten.

As for Eisenstaedt's comments - never take praise or abuse from an established photographer seriously. There are many instances of great photographers praising their latest protege - who has turned out to be just not very good.
And the opposite holds true. In Dialogue With Photography Imogen Cunningham takes time out to slag off Les Krims, and it didn't do him any harm :lol:
 

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