Is Photography an "Art"?

greedostick

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OP should go back to sucking at Ghost Pilots.

Ghost Pilots is stupid. I'm going back to Ikaruga. At least it's fun.

In all seriousness though, photography is one of those things I find interesting, and also one of the few art related things I have never attempted seriously. The online information on whether photography is an art also seems to be heavily debated.

When I think art, I think something that takes skill to create, and attempts to convey some meaning. I think it's pretty reasonable for someone who has painted off and on most of their life with various media, to question these things if they don't have experience in them. Photography is very different from any other form of art medium, because you don't paint the picture yourself, the camera does.

Now I can see the points made by various people here, and I think I accept that it is art, BUT, I don't think it takes anywhere near as much skill as actually painting or drawing something of high quality, BUT, I don't have a ton of experience with it yet. I just took some pictures today with my Pentax, and I guess I will find that out first hand if I stick with it.
 
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ki_atsushi

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Ghost Pilots is stupid. I'm going back to Ikaruga. At least it's fun.

In all seriousness though, photography is one of those things I find interesting, and also one of the few art related things I have never attempted seriously. The online information on whether photography is an art also seems to be heavily debated.

When I think art, I think something that takes skill to create, and attempts to convey some meaning. I think it's pretty reasonable for someone who has painted off and on most of their life with various media, to question these things if they don't have experience in them. Photography is very different from any other form of art medium, because you don't paint the picture yourself, the camera does.

Now I can see the points made by various people here, and I think I accept that it is art, BUT, I don't think it takes anywhere near as much skill as actually painting or drawing something of high quality, BUT, I don't have a ton of experience with it yet. I just took some pictures today with my Pentax, and I guess I will find that out first hand if I stick with it.

The camera takes an image when you make it. That means:

a) You must point it, make sure your subject is framed the way you want. Being close with a wide angle or far with a telephoto might make your subject the same size in the frame, but will impact the field of view around your subject!

b) Choose a fast shutter speed that will freeze the subject or instead choose a slow one that gives the subject the appearance of motion

c) Take in everything at maximum sharpness (small aperture, large f-stop), or choose a large aperture that emphasizes the subject and defocuses everything else.

There's a lot more to think about than just pointing and firing away, which is what makes the difference between a good photo and a terrible one.

Plus, there's more to photography than digital, processing film and making prints from it is an art form itself. As a photographer you haven't lived if you haven't done it!
 

Thierry Henry

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From a mates house, a few kilometers (2 miles) from where I stay,




Meg0dla.jpg




I can do a little bit, and I'm no "artist".

My grandma (bless her soul) could have lined up that shot.
 

ki_atsushi

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That's a hell of a shot there. Beautiful, well exposed sky without too much post processing HDR bullshit a lot of photographers fall into.

Well done.

Personally I wouldn't put the sun center frame, but that just comes down to an individual's composition sense.
 

oliverclaude

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Photography can easily be an art form, but pics tend to emancipate themselves from their photographer and live their own careless life without him. It's easy to recognize a Nan Goldin photo, but it will give you a hard time to recognize Nan Goldin herself form her pictures.

Photographies instantly draw a seemingly endless distance to their creators. Once you accept that determining factor, they become easier to digest as an art form.
 

NGT

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Ive taken black and white manual photography, rolled my film in the dark, and done all of the development to turn it into a photograph. I think that counts more as "creating" than waiting for the sun to go down. Beautiful shot though!
 
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NGT

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Would you consider fly tying "art" ?
 

NGT

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It can be, yeah.


Like this not being art...

gallery41ed86eec0e04.jpg


And this or this being art?

s-l300.jpg
779f794234a28249196806ebc11a60e1.jpg


Or would it have to go this far to be art?

911_rp_america.jpg


Or would this count as art too If it replicates something well enough to bring in steelie on a crystal river? Or was the presentation by the caster, the true art?

c812411ac3e3c04997792c4af9cf762d.jpg
 
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ki_atsushi

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Ah, now we're getting into the "craft" world.

There's always been a big debate on the differences. Art tends to be something that is purely for visual/audio enjoyment, or to provoke an emotional response. Crafts, on the other hand, while they may be aesthetically pleasing, have a specific utility. I'd say flies fall under craft.
 
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bloodycelt

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Ah, now we're getting into the "craft" world.

There's always been a big debate on the differences. Art tends to be something that is purely for visual/audio enjoyment, or to provoke an emotional response. Crafts, on the other hand, while they may be aesthetically pleasing, have a specific utility. I'd say flies fall under craft.

It might be easier to view aesthetics and craftsmanship as two separate measurements that can be used. (I'm using Aesthetics as the artistic quantifier, since many folks including Harold Bloom use it in that context).

And I'm not sure either is directly proportional to the skill involved. Painting an exact replica of a soup can requires more skill than a picture of a sunset in a back yard. But the later is more aesthetically pleasing and artistic IMHO.
 

DevilRedeemed

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Photography can easily be an art form, but pics tend to emancipate themselves from their photographer and live their own careless life without him. It's easy to recognize a Nan Goldin photo, but it will give you a hard time to recognize Nan Goldin herself form her pictures.

Photographies instantly draw a seemingly endless distance to their creators. Once you accept that determining factor, they become easier to digest as an art form.

I would agree to an extent but view street photography, of the 20th century as an exception.
Also stuff by Stephen Shore and William Eggleston cannot be deemed anything other than high art of the 20th century and I would venture to say that in Eggleston's case it would be hard to mark a line where he ends and his images begin, so much of him is incorporated in his pictures.
The true mark of some of these artists is mindset and character, greedo I find it hard to understand why it is so much of an issue to you, it's not like something that has come about in recent years

You think the cave dwellers thought themselves artists when they drew on the walls?
Art is a discipline in its own right, a term that can mean a specific profession, one which involves particular skill sets mostly conceived over past centuries - but the term has expendaded over the past century and a half to include all types of things.
Do you view Rothko's work as skilled art? Pollock? How about Warhol?
 
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DevilRedeemed

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Ah, now we're getting into the "craft" world.

There's always been a big debate on the differences. Art tends to be something that is purely for visual/audio enjoyment, or to provoke an emotional response. Crafts, on the other hand, while they may be aesthetically pleasing, have a specific utility. I'd say flies fall under craft.

Art has been also a means to stimulate thought, hence conceptual art.
Also if you believe in that sort of thing, a way of connecting spiritually with the audience.
 

ki_atsushi

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Art has been also a means to stimulate thought, hence conceptual art.
Also if you believe in that sort of thing, a way of connecting spiritually with the audience.

Very true, it's often the artist's intention to give the viewer a glimpse into his/her thought process and beliefs.

By the way, Eggleston is one of my heroes. He was one of my early influences. I also like Cartier-Bresson. It's funny that I took to their work so much because I personally shy away from street photography.
 

DevilRedeemed

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Very true, it's often the artist's intention to give the viewer a glimpse into his/her thought process and beliefs.

By the way, Eggleston is one of my heroes. He was one of my early influences. I also like Cartier-Bresson. It's funny that I took to their work so much because I personally shy away from street photography.

Yeah both are my favourite photographers. Just amazing people
 

Cylotron

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There's different types of "art". Something like 'drawing' requires a combination of natural talent/skill & practice. Whereas photography relies much more on practice + funds. The more money you have, the more you can spend on equipment to take better pictures.
 

ki_atsushi

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There's different types of "art". Something like 'drawing' requires a combination of natural talent/skill & practice. Whereas photography relies much more on practice + funds. The more money you have, the more you can spend on equipment to take better pictures.

Having money helps, but not in the way you're saying. Spending money on travel is far better than upgrading equipment.

With the basic DSLR's from Canon and Nikon, you can do 95% of what anyone with a pro camera can. The only thing you're really lacking is speed (the top end cameras can do 10-15 frames per second each, whereas the basic models do about 5), so unless you're doing sports or wildlife, you don't need anything more than the very basic camera. You will not be able to tell a difference in image quality in a blind test between a $400 and a $4,000 camera, which is the most important part.

Best to take that $3,600 difference and travel to a country you've always wanted to see.
 

joe8

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Asking opinions.

I was talking with a girl at work today and we couldn't decide. I know it's considered an art, but I really don't get it. I don't feel like it takes much skill, other than learning the camera to get unique shots.

I guess I could understand if you are setting up the photo, trying to convey some meaning by setting up a scene or something.

FYI - I like photography. I just picked up a Pentax K1000 35mm film camera and plan to get some pictures on a road trip to Niagra Falls tomorrow. So I don't feel I am bias in any way regarding whether photography is, or is not an art form.
Of course it's a art form. You can take decent photos by learning how to use the camera. But you will only take photos that make an impact (and/or make you famous), if you have lot of skill and experience, or more likely, if you have natural talent as well. Some people have "better" visual perception than others. I don't know if you can learn to have excellent visual perception just by reading about it- it is probably too complicated and instinctive to be taught. If you know how to frame a shot really well in any situation that you find yourself in (even if you weren't expecting to take a photo that day), then I think that's a skill that can't really be taught- you have to learn it from experience, and even then the people with natural talent will be ahead of everyone else. Or if you can frame a shot really well, and in your own way as well.

There are reasons why guys like Ansel Adams can take better (more striking) photos, even if they were put in the same location with the same lighting conditions, as other people taking the same photo. How you take your photographs is as unique to you as your signature.

You can learn to be a good photographer by going to a photography school, or reading books. But a lot of the best (or most well-known) photographers are the ones that have natural talent as well. It is just like directing films, the very best directors (e.g., Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick) have natural talent for framing a shot (in an interesting or novel way), as well as the training in making films. There may (or may not) have been painters that had more technical skill than Picasso, but his way of painting had an impact on you that you could get from no other painter, and it came from his personality, not just his skill. The most important tool in photography is the brain, not the camera. Which I guess is true of every other art form.
 
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ebinsugewa

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anyone who thinks it's not art has never tried to be good at it.

that being said taking 100 snaps with a dslr and postprocessing the fuck out of them is a far cry from developing and printing your own shit but i'm not going to judge. knowing your composition and proper lens/aperture etc to use is very much a skill no matter how easy people make it look. try taking a roll with a manual slr as a beginner and see if you get even three usable well-constructed photos from it if you think it's so easy.

dodging, burning, getting your black levels right, there's a lot that digital hides you from. that's not even meant as a slight against digital. but rather it makes the process seem like something anyone can just do with no effort
 

DevilRedeemed

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I so want to get into medium format and eventually full frame.

Anyone ever own that strange Polaroid Mamiya hybrid? Very enticing
 

greedostick

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If I ever got deep into shooting film, this would be the camera I would get some day. It just looks awesome.

1024px-Rolleiflex_f2-8-F.jpg
 

ki_atsushi

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I so want to get into medium format and eventually full frame.

Anyone ever own that strange Polaroid Mamiya hybrid? Very enticing

No, but I've owned a Mamiya RB67. Awesome studio camera, but way too heavy for lugging around. It was over 8 lbs. with the prism finder, hand grip, and lens combination I was using! :eek:

rb67_500a.jpg



If I ever got deep into shooting film, this would be the camera I would get some day. It just looks awesome.

View attachment 41718

I owned one in the past and it is indeed amazing. Only problem is you're limited to one focal length. I ended up getting a Hasselblad 500CM later. :drool:

5.jpg
 
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@M

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I agree that photography is definitely an art, they wouldn't offer it as a major in college otherwise. True, anybody can shoot a photo, but then, anybody can scribble a picture too.
 

FilthyRear

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This is my go-to piece of kit when I want to give my photos that professional look.

TMNT+Camera.jpg
 
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