Is photography an art or just a medium?

[rexbobcat]

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

 

[photoguy99]

I know the conversation had been had. And I know that TPF does not provide particularly good answers. And so it is perpetuated that TPF is a surprisingly bad place to talk about photography.

My point is that there seems to be community effort involved in ensuring that no good discussion ever occurs here.

Designer, please actually review my contributions before claiming I haven't made any.

 

[Braineack]

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.

 

[imagemaker46]

It's whatever you want it to be. For me it's a job I enjoy doing, within that job I always look for images that are worthy to be used in magazines or hung on walls. I shoot images that exactly the same as other photographers standing next to me, and I shoot images that other photographers don't see. I visualize images in my head before I even show up to shoot, some work, and some require re-thinking, the art of creating images is in the head of the person holding he camera that can translate what they see and record what they see, create something out of nothing. It's all personal. Some people can look at ugly and see beauty, other look at beauty and see ugly.

 

[Designer]

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?

 

[bc_steve]

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.

I was thinking the same.

Is every painting art? Or just some of them? If I paint my house, is that art?

It's subjective, and in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Raj_55555]

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

All I know is if this is Art:

A Painting named "Untitled (No. 11) " worth 48 Million $

Then this definitely is:

Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic

 

[Braineack]

is a photograph photography?

is the photograph art, or is the penguin and nature art?

is this real life?


Rothko took a metaphysical abstraction and made it real (for all we know, that could be a painting of penguin), a photographer has to take something real in order to make it metaphysical.

 

[robbins.photo]

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.

Wait, the angsty misunderstood Kevin Bacon in Footloose or the evil mastermind from Xmen?

Sent from my LG-LG730 using Tapatalk

 

[robbins.photo]

is a photograph photography?

is the photograph art, or is the penguin and nature art?

is this real life?


Rothko took a metaphysical abstraction and made it real (for all we know, that could be a painting of penguin), a photographer has to take something real in order to make it metaphysical.

I am the eggman, you are the walrus, koo koo kajube

Sent from my LG-LG730 using Tapatalk

 

[bc_steve]

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

All I know is if this is Art:

A Painting named "Untitled (No. 11) " worth 48 Million $

If I'm left scratching my head, it must be art

 

[Braineack]

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.

Wait, the angsty misunderstood Kevin Bacon in Footloose or the evil mastermind from Xmen?

was kevin bacon in Xmen?!

 

[photoguy99]

I think my recent point has been adequately demonstrated.

Anyone care to offer up a trial definition for art? I threw out some ideas and, obviously, have a definition or two rattling around but it's not about me.

 

[Raj_55555]

for all we know, that could be a painting of penguin

That's one strange looking penguin. Rothko should really try photography..

is this real life?

Very valid question, as long as we are questioning everything, has anyone here heard of metaphysical solipsism? It's a philosophy which questions the very existence of every single thing (living or non-living), and stresses that only one's mind is sure to exist.

As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure. The external world and other minds cannot be known, and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist.

As per this philosophy, this painting and the photograph along with all you guys on the forum could be a figment of my imagination.

Enough philosophy for one day, back to FIFA14 now (which is also my creation)

 

[Braineack]

how's this:

Is the universe intelligible to man, or unintelligible and unknowable? Can man find happiness on earth, or is he doomed to frustration and despair? Does man have the power of choice, the power to choose his goals and to achieve them, the power to direct the course of his life—or is he the helpless plaything of forces beyond his control, which determine his fate? Is man, by nature, to be valued as good, or to be despised as evil? These are metaphysical questions, but the answers to them determine the kind of ethics men will accept and practice; the answers are the link between metaphysics and ethics. And although metaphysics as such is not a normative science, the answers to this category of questions assume, in man’s mind, the function of metaphysical value-judgments, since they form the foundation of all of his moral values.

Consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, man knows that he needs a comprehensive view of existence to integrate his values, to choose his goals, to plan his future, to maintain the unity and coherence of his life—and that his metaphysical value-judgments are involved in every moment of his life, in his every choice, decision and action.

Metaphysics—the science that deals with the fundamental nature of reality—involves man’s widest abstractions. It includes every concrete he has ever perceived, it involves such a vast sum of knowledge and such a long chain of concepts that no man could hold it all in the focus of his immediate conscious awareness. Yet he needs that sum and that awareness to guide him—he needs the power to summon them into full, conscious focus.

That power is given to him by art.