Is photography an art or just a medium?

[minicoop1985]

I think I need a lot more booze to deal with this thread. lol

Me too.

I thought photography was more of a large, really. Medium seems too tight.

 

[shaylou]

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.

So what is the answer?

 

[shaylou]

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.

What about light painting? That can be completely man made and I'm sure there are other examples too.

 

[astroNikon]

Light Painting is difficult
Everytime I go to Home Depot and buy a bucket of light, when they go to color mix it they spill it all out.

 

[robbins.photo]

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.

So what is the answer?

Lol, well since I'm stuck here waiting for a beer and a parrot anyway, I'll go ahead and see if I can help you out. Put a hammer and a chisel in my hands and throw me a hunk of marble and I can produce something that might be useful in paving your driveway with, but believe me what your left with will not be art. Give those same tools to a sculptor and he can use them to produce art.

A camera is a tool, just like a hammer and chisel. Nothing more. It can be used to produce magnificent art, or something akin to gravel for your driveway.

 

[shaylou]

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.

I was wondering about that. When I ask the question I seriously wanted to hear opinions but did not expect the negative remarks.

 

[shaylou]

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.

That's because this conversation has been beaten and flogged and burnt with lit cigarettes so many times not just on this forum but in the history of human existence as a whole, that it seems pointless to keep rehashing it.

Do a Google search and you'll come up with much better answers than can be provided here

I have not come across the question before and that is why I ask it. With all do respect, if the question bothers you why did you involve yourself in the conversation? When I am looking at forums I skim over the conversations that do not interest me and get involved with the ones that do. It's really that simple.

 

[shaylou]

That morning, with his 40 posts, photoguy99 set off on his quest: To expose the community and discuss things in which shall not be spoke. It was a good morning. Photoguy99 was later played by Kevin Bacon in the movie version of the story.

Again not helpful!

 

[shaylou]

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.

Most of these people are my friends, so I stick up for them.



Who is trying to shut down the conversation?

The smart remark are two to one from the regulars here. I think that is what he is referring to. It's a shame I have to weed through bunch of smart remarks to get to constructive replies to my thread post.

 

[bribrius]

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.

So what is the answer?

Lol, well since I'm stuck here waiting for a beer and a parrot anyway, I'll go ahead and see if I can help you out. Put a hammer and a chisel in my hands and throw me a hunk of marble and I can produce something that might be useful in paving your driveway with, but believe me what your left with will not be art. Give those same tools to a sculptor and he can use them to produce art.

A camera is a tool, just like a hammer and chisel. Nothing more. It can be used to produce magnificent art, or something akin to gravel for your driveway.

cant a driveway be art?

 

[robbins.photo]

So what is the answer?

Lol, well since I'm stuck here waiting for a beer and a parrot anyway, I'll go ahead and see if I can help you out. Put a hammer and a chisel in my hands and throw me a hunk of marble and I can produce something that might be useful in paving your driveway with, but believe me what your left with will not be art. Give those same tools to a sculptor and he can use them to produce art.

A camera is a tool, just like a hammer and chisel. Nothing more. It can be used to produce magnificent art, or something akin to gravel for your driveway.

cant a driveway be art?

Well if you find a driveway that does that for you I'm guessing it would have to be a really nice driveway. Either way the pretentious quotient has pretty much exceeded my personal tolerance level, so I'll wish you all well in sorting it out. All I can say is thank goodness for some of the regulars having both the wisdom and the patience to keep things light hearted and prevent this thread from spiraling out of control like so many of those on this and similar topics have always done so quickly in the past.

 

[bribrius]

Lol, well since I'm stuck here waiting for a beer and a parrot anyway, I'll go ahead and see if I can help you out. Put a hammer and a chisel in my hands and throw me a hunk of marble and I can produce something that might be useful in paving your driveway with, but believe me what your left with will not be art. Give those same tools to a sculptor and he can use them to produce art.

A camera is a tool, just like a hammer and chisel. Nothing more. It can be used to produce magnificent art, or something akin to gravel for your driveway.

cant a driveway be art?

Well if you find a driveway that does that for you I'm guessing it would have to be a really nice driveway. Either way the pretentious quotient has pretty much exceeded my personal tolerance level, so I'll wish you all well in sorting it out. All I can say is thank goodness for some of the regulars having both the wisdom and the patience to keep things light hearted and prevent this thread from spiraling out of control like so many of those on this and similar topics have always done so quickly in the past.

I was thinking construction design or sidewalk art chalk on the driveway.
anyhoo. I stopped reading when I liked post #3. Figured after that it would pretty much go nowhere.

what is photography,

it is cave men painting on the walls in the modern era.

 

[minicoop1985]

The classic "Define art" concept. It's impossible to define what is and isn't art, because it's subjective. You know what isn't impossible to define? Bacon. Lots and lots of bacon. I'm hungry now.

 

[manaheim]

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.

So what is the answer?

Lol, well since I'm stuck here waiting for a beer and a parrot anyway, I'll go ahead and see if I can help you out. Put a hammer and a chisel in my hands and throw me a hunk of marble and I can produce something that might be useful in paving your driveway with, but believe me what your left with will not be art. Give those same tools to a sculptor and he can use them to produce art.

A camera is a tool, just like a hammer and chisel. Nothing more. It can be used to produce magnificent art, or something akin to gravel for your driveway.

That was the most articulate statement I've seen on TPF, on this subject, since I've been here.

And it came from robbins...

I think I'm gonna head down to Hell and make me a snowman.

 

[photoguy99]

You can't define what is or isn't a boulder, either. I mean, there's lots of stuff that is a boulder, and lots of stuff that's not, but there's these other things. Is it just a rock, or is it big enough to be a boulder?

Ditto "red" or "van"

Turns out words are pretty subjective all around, not just "art", and yet somehow we all muddle along.

Thanks, shaylou, for seeing my point. The rest of you, well, as we say in the south, Blayuss yer horts!