Film Photography

Barney

Barney

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Is film photography "art" just because its on film or are there some other factors at play?

I see lots of images of rivers and mountains etc that are described as "fine art" and the only redeeming feature from a run of the mill snapshot is that its on film or large format.
 
Simple answer - it's art because it's art. Digital photographs can be art, film photographs can be rubbish.
 
Barney said:
Is film photography "art" just because its on film or are there some other factors at play?

I see lots of images of rivers and mountains etc that are described as "fine art" and the only redeeming feature from a run of the mill snapshot is that its on film or large format.
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Art is a label that doesn't mean what many people expect. However 'fine art' in this context has nothing to do with art as a creative process and everything to do with making prints to hang on the wall.

But film is no more inherently artistic than an ordinary pencil or a piece of plain paper.
 
Compared to my paper-and-pencil scratchings, even MY photographs (on film or digital) are artistic!
 
Ah I see, fine art is the process of printing onto paper,

I wish I could draw as good as my son, he will not pursue the god given skill at the moment. :(
 
Not that simple. Have you ever seen the film The Producers? There's a wonderful line in there. Adolf Hitler was an amateur painter - the easel, canvases, art gallery type of painting. The line ran "Hitler! Now there was a painter. He could paint an entire room in an afternoon".

Just applying paint isn't enough. I could paint my bedroom ceiling magnolia, but it wouldn't be quite the same as Michael's below (that's autocorrect - guess what I actually typed) painting a ceiling in the Sistine chapel.
 
I like quotes. Have this one on me, from Alfred Steiglitz.

There is no bad art. There is art and non art.

Or something like that.
 
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erm where does Picasso come into it...to me his drawings/paintings are carp and if he took a decent camera shot would probably ruin it in Photoshop or whatever.
 
Apparently, art can be a pile of bricks or an animal carcass in formaldehyde.. or a banana taped to a wall. I guess that a lot has to do with who made it.
 
StephenM said:
Not that simple. Have you ever seen the film The Producers? There's a wonderful line in there. Adolf Hitler was an amateur painter - the easel, canvases, art gallery type of painting. The line ran "Hitler! Now there was a painter. He could paint an entire room in an afternoon".

Just applying paint isn't enough. I could paint my bedroom ceiling magnolia, but it wouldn't be quite the same as Michael's below (that's autocorrect - guess what I actually typed) painting a ceiling in the Sistine chapel.
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"2 coats!"
 
StephenM said:
Not that simple. Have you ever seen the film The Producers? There's a wonderful line in there. Adolf Hitler was an amateur painter - the easel, canvases, art gallery type of painting. The line ran "Hitler! Now there was a painter. He could paint an entire room in an afternoon".

Just applying paint isn't enough. I could paint my bedroom ceiling magnolia, but it wouldn't be quite the same as Michael's below (that's autocorrect - guess what I actually typed) painting a ceiling in the Sistine chapel.
Click to expand...

I have not seen the film, i will put it on my must watch list!

Re the Sistene chapel, he was undoubtedly a skilled painter but if he was told what to paint up there i would rate your ceiling as more artistic though with a less practiced level of skill, it seems the same with photography, a snap of a room is seconds or less, to modify the lighting to create a HDR type effect in the shadows and highlighting features to enhance the visual aesthetics is a more skillfull application of learned techniques, But is that art?
 
Barney said:
I see lots of images of rivers and mountains etc that are described as "fine art"
Click to expand...

My understanding of "fine art" is that it is not produced for a commercial purpose (e.g advertising) and it's not documentary and it's not sports or fashion or wildlife or portraits. In other words, it's easier to identify what it's not than to say what it is.

It's nothing to with being taken on film or being in black and white.

That still leaves the questions of what is "art" never mind fine art; and who gets to decide whether something can be called art.
 
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Reading up on the etymology of "art" puts the current use of the word in perspective (sorry)

www.etymonline.com

Art - Etymology, Origin & Meaning

"skill as a result of learning or practice," from Old French art (10c.) and directly from… See origin and meaning of art.
www.etymonline.com www.etymonline.com
 
Anything that involves someone creating something can be classed as art. Using film is just a medium of choice, like a painter using oil rather the water based paints or sculptor selecting marble or sandstone.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Reading up on the etymology of "art" puts the current use of the word in perspective (sorry)

www.etymonline.com

Art - Etymology, Origin & Meaning

"skill as a result of learning or practice," from Old French art (10c.) and directly from… See origin and meaning of art.
www.etymonline.com www.etymonline.com
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MMM

I would call a learned subject "craft" rather than Art, thanks for that!
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Reading up on the etymology of "art" puts the current use of the word in perspective (sorry)

www.etymonline.com

Art - Etymology, Origin & Meaning

"skill as a result of learning or practice," from Old French art (10c.) and directly from… See origin and meaning of art.
www.etymonline.com www.etymonline.com
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explains why I have a book "The art of war in the middle ages"
 
Plain Nev said:
Don't you learn how to make art?
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I don't know Neville, a craft can be learned I think but not art, i may need to adjust my view given Andrews supply of a definition. I can be taught how to safely use a chainsaw (craft) but could I be taught how to carve a squirrel or bear from a tree stump (art). where as painting, for instance seems to able to be taught in a mechanical way, and few go on to create art.
 
excalibur2 said:
explains why I have a book "The art of war in the middle ages"
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Indeed.

Someone cashing in on Sun Tzu's successful handbook, perhaps?
 
Barney said:
I have not seen the film, i will put it on my must watch list!
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Make sure you see the original Mel Brooks one from the late '60s rather than the more modern remake.
 
Nod said:
Make sure you see the original Mel Brooks one from the late '60s rather than the more modern remake.
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On the other hand, Uma Thurman's performance of "Flaunt it" is well worth seeing and hearing.
 
Barney said:
I have not seen the film, i will put it on my must watch list!

Re the Sistene chapel, he was undoubtedly a skilled painter but if he was told what to paint up there i would rate your ceiling as more artistic though with a less practiced level of skill, it seems the same with photography, a snap of a room is seconds or less, to modify the lighting to create a HDR type effect in the shadows and highlighting features to enhance the visual aesthetics is a more skillfull application of learned techniques, But is that art?
Click to expand...
A slight deviation from the topic but, speaking of the Sistine Chapel, there was a Steve Bell cartoon in The Guardian (or maybe The Observer) way back where Michelangelo was in the pub with another artist talking about the Sistine chapel job explaining that he had tried to persuade the Pope to have it artexed, simpler and cheaper.
 
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