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.
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