Is photography an art or just a medium?

Rick58 · Apr 18, 2014

This is really a very simple question with a very simple answer.
A camera is nothing more then paint and a brush.
It's up to me if I want to paint the post holding my mailbox, or put a beautiful landscape on a canvas.
Either way, I'm a painter (photographer), but only one way am I an artist.

Designer · Apr 18, 2014

shaylou said:
Just wanted to get some insight on the subject .

Personally I think it's an art. What's your opinion.

Where were you when this was first brought up? They had this discussion way back in the 19th Century. No, there has not been a resolution yet.

As for my opinion, photography is definitely a medium, or more precisely a genre of media.

The real question is; what is art? Define art so everyone will at least partially agree.

IMO some photographs are very artistic and are deserving of high praise.

So photography can become art, but of course that means an artist is required to make the photograph.

Braineack · Apr 18, 2014

Rick58 said:
A camera is nothing more then paint and a brush.

I'd say the camera is more like the brush alone--it cannot create something that's not already first there--so the paint is pretty much whatever it's capturing.

A painter, can pick up a brush, and smear some paint on a canvas and create a landscape. A photographer can't pick up a camera and create the same, it has to first find the landcape and then recreate it. The only "happy trees" a photographer can paint, are ones that already exist.

photoguy99 · Apr 18, 2014

Modern conceptions of Art have largely separated the artisanal aspects of making Art Pieces from the Art.

So, questions of craft, whether it is easy or hard, whether you are merely recording/finding what is already present pretty much all go away.

You can argue from a 200 year old position and conclude that photography isn't art because it's not crafty enough, or because it's only recording things, but to do so is to ignore, well, 200 years of evolution in the way we think of Art.

The debate is on fact long over. It's not a bad idea to review it for people who haven't heard it before, though. You gotta know your history to grasp where you are.

photoguy99 · Apr 18, 2014

Some starting points for a useful definition of art:

Does the artist have a concept, some idea to communicate? Does some idea or concept get communicated? Do people looking at the piece experience it as Art, according to whatever they think the word means?

rexbobcat · Apr 18, 2014

Don't y'all understand? Now that photography is becoming popular painting is dead! We must protect our most sacred of arts and destroy all soul-stealing machines.

Dagwood56 · Apr 18, 2014

I feel photography is a medium within the genre of art. Other mediums are paints, charcoal, pastels, ink etc., and the artist creates the picture using a specific medium.

Braineack · Apr 18, 2014

photoguy99 said:
Some starting points for a useful definition of art:

Does the artist have a concept, some idea to communicate? Does some idea or concept get communicated? Do people looking at the piece experience it as Art, according to whatever they think the word means?

if you take a photo of art, is art art?

Rick58 · Apr 18, 2014

Braineack said:
Rick58 said:

A camera is nothing more then paint and a brush.

Click to expand...

I'd say the camera is more like the brush alone--it cannot create something that's not already first there--so the paint is pretty much whatever it's capturing.

A painter, can pick up a brush, and smear some paint on a canvas and create a landscape. A photographer can't pick up a camera and create the same, it has to first find the landcape and then recreate it. The only "happy trees" a photographer can paint, are ones that already exist.

You can twist it anyway you like, but the bottom line is, it all depends what you do with the camera when you snap the shutter.
Is a press or police photographer any less a photographer yet I doubt seriously many murder scene photographs are concerned about rule of thirds.
I'm not sure why everyone is so intent on giving photography a label. It is whatever you want it to be.

noun: photographer; a person who takes photographs. It doesn't NEED to be any more or less

rexbobcat · Apr 18, 2014

Braineack said:
if you take a photo of art, is art art?

No, it's fine art since art + art = double the art!

robbins.photo · Apr 18, 2014

Overread said:
First lets define Art before we decide what does and doesn't count as Art

Wow.. really? I mean.. really?

rotfl

I'm going to run away and hide now. I just don't think I could bear to slog through another 200 pages of that old discussion.. lol

photoguy99 · Apr 18, 2014

I find it so interesting that whenever anyone wants to talk seriously about Photography on The Photography Forum, several of the more active members, whoever they are at the time, will invariably turn up and try furiously to shut the conversation down. The players change, but the game remains the same.