Is there such a thing as art photography?

sirch said:
I don't see why visual art gets singled out for this special treatment.

Taking the word "topic" for "field of human endeavour" then the construct "art is made by an artist as art" can be generalised to

e.g
a theory of physics is created by a physicist as a theory of physics
a vaccine is made by a vaccinologist as a vaccine
financial accounts are created by an accountant as accounts
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This is very funny and I never thought of it that way. I like what you say. If I wanted to argue about why art should be the exception, I would have to argue that art is art, because it is not definable. But I will not argue with your point. ;)

sirch said:
The point "it's art if the viewer thinks it is" is also very problematic. One of the issues is that the very thing that a lot of people rail against - namely found art - does exactly that, it takes an ordinary thing and adds to it the attributes of art, a signature, displays it in a gallery, etc. and so it becomes art independent of what the original maker intended. Another difficulty is the beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder approach and eliding beauty with art, at that point anything which anyone thinks is art is art but not consistently, so something which you define as art is might not be art for me and we simply have no accepted definition of art and Kant goes out of the window.

There is though the consideration that someone might simply not recognise or be shy to admit what they are doing is art. Someone on a bicycle might not think of themselves as a cyclist in the Bradly Wiggins sense but there is no doubt that they are a cyclist at least for the time that they are riding their bike. Similarly a photographer who prints, signs, displays in a gallery and sells their work might not think of themselves as an artist but given that their work and associated process has the attributes of visual art then then really it is art and third parties can ascribe it as such whether or not the photographer defines it that way themselves.
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I generally agree with this.

I waited with my comments mostly to see how people here approach the subject of art in photography. Most of the people seem to be adherents to Duchamp's vision of what is art. The good thing about the definition is that it does not try to deprive anybody the entry to the art world. Art history is littered by critics that ridiculed art that later became mainstream and well accepted (Impressionism, Fauvism, BeBob...) Unsurprisingly, the biggest limitation with this definition is the over inclusiveness and a lack of inspirational criteria. When I was satisfied that my basic craft of producing gallery grade images were met, I was lost. Everything I saw around me is the stuff I have seen before (crafted better or worse). What was the point of cranking out more birds on the stick, more macros of blooms, more lone docks or rocks with water at slow shutter speed, more autumns or sunsets or reflections or door frames and window frames... I was about to find a new challenge or just quit photography. I decided to try to learn more about art and try my hand in art photography. I figured my craft will slowly continue improve over time. Well I took a course in art history, studied from books and online sources and started spending an awful lot of time in galleries near my home and on vacations. The key issue for me was to find a definition of art that would give me a guidance on how to actually create it. It seems that half the internet is devoted to definitions of art. Duchamp's school of thinking is currently quite popular, but the definitions that emphasize 1) Creativity and 2) Unique and very personal vision were perhaps a slim majority. While definition of art on those two pillars is still broad and open to argument and interpretation, I found this definition "Actionable" (I have been told that using caps or bold is shouting when used in forums, so I did not use the caps, even though i wanted to). Actionable goals are valuable to me, as they can guide me in my exploration and give me some yardstick to evaluate my work. Duchamp's definition is a nice thing to chat about around a coffee table, but it in fact does not inspire and nudge the artist and it does not encourage the viewer to look at art actively. It just promotes I like it/I do not like it from viewers and treading water from artists. It is not for me.
 
Pavel M said:
The key issue for me was to find a definition of art that would give me a guidance on how to actually create it.
Click to expand...
Pavel M said:
Actionable goals are valuable to me, as they can guide me in my exploration and give me some yardstick to evaluate my work.
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Real artists don't think about stuff like that, they are driven to make work regardless of who thinks it is art or not and regardless of it having an audience/market. There's no tick list to follow to get to the destination of making art. All there is is the work. The more you make the more you understand where you're going. Stop thinking about art and start making work - in this case photographs.

“What is the art experience about? Really, I’m not interested in making “Art” at all. I never, ever, think about it. To say the word “Art”, it’s almost like a curse on art.”
Joel Meyerowitz
 
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Ed Sutton said:
Real artists don't think about stuff like that, they are driven to make work regardless of who thinks it is art or not and regardless of it having an audience/market. There's no tick list to follow to get to the destination of making art. All there is is the work. The more you make the more you understand where you're going. Stop thinking about art and start making work - in this case photographs.

“What is the art experience about? Really, I’m not interested in making “Art” at all. I never, ever, think about it. To say the word “Art”, it’s almost like a curse on art.”
Joel Meyerowitz
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Dave, I am OK with not being a real artist in your eyes or mine. I am a retired scientist used to running research projects and it is hard to change my approach to what to me is a project at 70+. And yet. My approach has gained me an insight and appreciation of work of others I never had and enjoyment and high from visiting places like Guggenheim (New York). I think that my work has been very well received (and accepted sometimes from thousands of applicants) in many professionally juried international exhibitions and gained me membership in a Manhattan gallery. For somebody with absolutely no talent and no art training and somebody who started doing photography seriously only after retirement it is not bad and it validates my approach in my eyes. I still continue to evolve and grow. Other approaches may work as well or perhaps better, but frankly I see no reason to change. In contrast, I know a lot of photographers that subscribe to your "just do things" and they still photograph exactly the same as they did a decade ago.
 
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Pavel M said:
Dave, I am OK with not being a real artist in your eyes or mine. I am a retired scientist used to running research projects and it is hard to change my approach to what to me is a project at 70+. And yet. My approach has gained me an insight and appreciation of work of others I never had and enjoyment and high from visiting places like Guggenheim (New York). I think that my work has been very well received (and accepted sometimes from thousands of applicants) in many professionally juried international exhibitions and gained me membership in a Manhattan gallery. For somebody with absolutely no talent and no art training and somebody who started doing photography seriously only after retirement it is not bad and it validates my approach in my eyes. I still continue to evolve and grow. Other approaches may work as well or perhaps better, but frankly I see no reason to change. In contrast, I know a lot of photographers that subscribe to your "just do things" and they still photograph exactly the same as they did a decade ago.
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Well done. You seem to be goal oriented. (y)

I'm play oriented! :D
 
TheBigYin said:
Frankly, i'm just amazed and delighted that we've made it onto the second page of the thread without the usual "Art is b*****ks" crowd of philistines descending...
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I don't think it is a question of art is b*****cks just in my case I don't like people telling me what I should be seeing and when I don't, I am some kind of simpleton because I don't get it.

If that makes me a philistine then so be it. My take on some art is it's a bit like the emperor's new clothes.
 
It can be easy enough to over-intellectualise matters when talking about art. To me art is essentially right brain stuff, not left.

Pavel I've glanced at some of your images and my reading of them is that they tend to fall into the category of graphic design rather than what I would call art. Is graphic design art?
 
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TheBigYin said:
Frankly, i'm just amazed and delighted that we've made it onto the second page of the thread without the usual "Art is b*****ks" crowd of philistines descending...
Click to expand...

Pookeyhead isn't posting any more - no baiting makes for a much better discussion.
 
droj said:
It can be easy enough to over-intellectualise matters when talking about art. To me art is essentially right brain stuff, not left.

Pavel I've glanced at some of your images and my reading of them is that they tend to fall into the category of graphic design rather than what I would call art. Is graphic design art?
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Droj, feel free to categorize my work anyway you wish. The curators (including from Guggenheim!), art gallery owners, professional photographers and artists picked my images for art exhibitions and accepted me as a member of their art gallery in Manhattan. So obviously the opinions have a range. I am continually exploring and trying to learn and understand and appreciate new things. Who knows what I will be into a year from now. Some of my work is not graphic art:

https://flic.kr/p/pYiSZF
View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pavel_photophile2008/15733417889/in/album-72157715782080717/


https://flic.kr/p/2iXdsVH
View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pavel_photophile2008/49851596803/in/album-72157715782080717/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/pavel_photophile2008/22051964310/in/album-72157715782080717/

Also feel free to think that I over-intelectualize. I admit I would like to be more spontaneous in my approach, but my genes and lifelong experience make that difficult (even as I keep on trying).
 
sirch said:
I don't see why visual art gets singled out for this special treatment.

Taking the word "topic" for "field of human endeavour" then the construct "art is made by an artist as art" can be generalised to

e.g
a theory of physics is created by a physicist as a theory of physics
a vaccine is made by a vaccinologist as a vaccine
financial accounts are created by an accountant as accounts

And so satisfies Kant's categorical imperative.
Click to expand...

This wasn't intended to single out the visual arts at all - I would apply this to everything we recognise as art.

So back to the original discussion, a photographer is someone who takes photographs? So you're suggesting the person who takes the photograph is what makes it what ever it is - if they happen to be an artist also then it's art, but if not then it isn't. There then come questions:

What about photos taken by people who were not artists by training or intent, whose work is recognised retrospectively as art? The gift of recognising art is with the viewers, not creators.
What about the idle snapshots taken by artists - how can they NOT be art in the same way that carelessly produced final accounts are still final acounts?
Does the origin of something idly produced validate it?

If an accountant is just doing some adding and subtracting it does not make a set of financial accounts, however if they do create a set of accounts then it is not for me or you to say that they are not accounts. We can say that they are good or bad accounts but we cannot deny their nature as accounts if they largely satisfy the commonly accepted set of attributes normally found with a set of accounts.

If a group of 5 year olds get up on a school stage with their recorders and attempt to play a tune, no one, in my experience at least, says it is not music. Doting parents will probably say that it is very good, more objective observers might not agree but given that it has many of the attributes of music: instruments, an attempt at organised sound, a performance, etc. then we accept it as music.

The point "it's art if the viewer thinks it is" is also very problematic. One of the issues is that the very thing that a lot of people rail against - namely found art - does exactly that, it takes an ordinary thing and adds to it the attributes of art, a signature, displays it in a gallery, etc. and so it becomes art independent of what the original maker intended. Another difficulty is the beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder approach and eliding beauty with art, at that point anything which anyone thinks is art is art but not consistently, so something which you define as art is might not be art for me and we simply have no accepted definition of art and Kant goes out of the window.

There is though the consideration that someone might simply not recognise or be shy to admit what they are doing is art. Someone on a bicycle might not think of themselves as a cyclist in the Bradly Wiggins sense but there is no doubt that they are a cyclist at least for the time that they are riding their bike. Similarly a photographer who prints, signs, displays in a gallery and sells their work might not think of themselves as an artist but given that their work and associated process has the attributes of visual art then then really it is art and third parties can ascribe it as such whether or not the photographer defines it that way themselves.
Click to expand...

But we KNOW that found art is art thanks to DuChamp.

The arguments become slightly circular at this point. Our friend of the videos in our last discussion who would pedestal anything produced by Nan Goldin and burn anything produced by Bob Ross has already decided what is and what is not art, regardless of any kind of artists intent. He is unequivocal that he can decide what is and what is not art. Likewise if you gathered musicians together to assess whether 5 year old recorder players were producing music, while what the 5 YOs did might have some attributes of music you might well find the musicians did not consider it to be so.

The thing is, art appears not to be the physical object, but a greater meaning behind it. I can make a vaccine (I really CAN make a vaccine) plus a test to demonstrate you have responded to my vaccine and probably also come up with a suitable infection challenge to demonstrate your immunity to infection. With art all we can manage is to have a group of the 'great and good' deciding who can and who can't make art. We have painters, we have sculptors, we have photographers, we have writers etc etc. They can all produce something tangible, but what separates Michael Angelo's David from simply being a funny shaped bit of marble is how it is perceived.

So I suggest 2 things.
Making art is NOT like making vaccines.
It's down to the perceiver and not the creator.

Said without any kind of rancour - this is a useful discussion. :)
 
Ed Sutton said:
Well done. You seem to be goal oriented. (y)

I'm play oriented! :D
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Dave, it is not a boolean thing. I may be goal oriented (to set parameters and assess results), but my approach is strictly playful trial and a lot of errors. Believe me, I no longer wish to meet deadlines and have deliverables ready. I just have fun. That does not mean I have to eject the tools I acquired over a lifetime.
 
Pavel M said:
Droj, feel free to categorize my work anyway you wish. The curators (including from Guggenheim!), art gallery owners, professional photographers and artists picked my images for art exhibitions and accepted me as a member of their art gallery in Manhattan. So obviously the opinions have a range. I am continually exploring and trying to learn and understand and appreciate new things. Who knows what I will be into a year from now. Some of my work is not graphic art:

https://flic.kr/p/pYiSZF
View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pavel_photophile2008/15733417889/in/album-72157715782080717/


https://flic.kr/p/2iXdsVH
View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pavel_photophile2008/49851596803/in/album-72157715782080717/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/pavel_photophile2008/22051964310/in/album-72157715782080717/

Also feel free to think that I over-intelectualize. I admit I would like to be more spontaneous in my approach, but my genes and lifelong experience make that difficult (even as I keep on trying).
Click to expand...

And here we have an example of what I was referring to - one group is quite clear about whether this is art, but another is not.
 
ancient_mariner said:
And here we have an example of what I was referring to - one group is quite clear about whether this is art, but another is not.
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Toni, I asked the question as an OP to generate what I saw is sagging discussion. I frankly do not care if my own work is put in the box of art or in another box labeled "other" or graphic art or whatever. To me, the important thing is to ask questions and to try to explore the answers, to playfully explore ideas and to set some interim, ever-changing plan of general exploration. In art as in science you can not get from A to Z directly (I think). There is a path/paths to any knowledge, understanding and skills. Having some idea of how to get from A to N is a good thing. For myself, I categorize any work I see as competent (my judgement) into those that I get and perhaps like or love (or not) and those I currently do not get. In my younger days, my appreciation ended with the impressionists. I could not get somebody like Kandinsky or Chagall, but these are now among my favourites. I still do not get analytical cubism or conceptual art, but let us talk again next year.
 
Pavel M said:
Toni, I asked the question as an OP to generate what I saw is sagging discussion. I frankly do not care if my own work is put in the box of art or in another box labeled "other" or graphic art or whatever. To me, the important thing is to ask questions and to try to explore the answers, to playfully explore ideas and to set some interim, ever-changing plan of general exploration. In art as in science you can not get from A to Z directly (I think). There is a path/paths to any knowledge, understanding and skills. Having some idea of how to get from A to N is a good thing. For myself, I categorize any work I see as competent (my judgement) into those that I get and perhaps like or love (or not) and those I currently do not get. In my younger days, my appreciation ended with the impressionists. I could not get somebody like Kandinsky or Chagall, but these are now among my favourites. I still do not get analytical cubism or conceptual art, but let us talk again next year.
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Humanity is highly varied. At present the idea of the artist as being someone driven to generate their work, regardless of its success or acceptance, is very much in the ascendant, but there may well come a time when the romantic gives way to the methodical or analytical and that changes.

Just to say, I've not studied art, though I know something of the work of Chagall and Kandinsky as well as more conventional (generally long dead) artists.
 
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ancient_mariner said:
Humanity is highly varied. At present the idea of the artist as being someone driven to generate their work, regardless of its success or acceptance, is very much in the ascendant, but there may well come a time when the romantic gives way to the methodical or analytical and that changes.

Just to say, I've not studied art, though I know something of the work of Chagall and Kandinsky as well as more conventional (generally long dead) artists.
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You are entitled to think what you like about my favourites. The main question is how much is your up to date unconventional artists heroes reflected in your own work. I have only access to a handful of your landscapes here, so I can not tell.
 
droj said:
It can be easy enough to over-intellectualise matters when talking about art. To me art is essentially right brain stuff, not left.

Pavel I've glanced at some of your images and my reading of them is that they tend to fall into the category of graphic design rather than what I would call art. Is graphic design art?
Click to expand...
A thought just occurred to me: Mondrian? Rothko? Graphic Designers all? ;)

In all seriousness, my images frequently ignore Principles of Design and Elements of Design, because in many of my images, producing harmonious image is not the intent and indeed I wish to convey something to the viewer and that requires side-stepping "the rules".
 
Pavel M said:
Dave, it is not a boolean thing. I may be goal oriented (to set parameters and assess results), but my approach is strictly playful trial and a lot of errors. Believe me, I no longer wish to meet deadlines and have deliverables ready. I just have fun. That does not mean I have to eject the tools I acquired over a lifetime.
Click to expand...
I don't know what 'boolean' means and Google didn't help! :ROFLMAO:

If you're having fun that's great.(y)
 
Ed Sutton said:
I don't know what 'boolean' means and Google didn't help! :ROFLMAO:
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George Boole was a self taught mathematician who has been associated with binary mathematics (numbers which can only be 0 or 1) through his work in attempting to associate mathematics with logical reasoning. The term "Boolean Logic" has been attached to the binary operations performed by the electronics at the lowest level of digital computers.

This last is peculiar, as George wouldn't have recognised a digital computer if it fell on his toe, having died in 1864. :naughty:
 
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AndrewFlannigan said:
George Boole was a self taught mathematician who has been associated with binary mathematics (numbers which can only be 0 or 1) through his work in attempting to associate mathematics with logical reasoning. The term "Boolean Logic" has been attached to the binary operations performed by the electronics at the lowest level of digital computers.

This last is peculiar, as George wouldn't have recognised a digital computer if it fell on his toe, having died in 1864. :naughty:
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If Pavel had said 'binary' instead of 'boolean' I'd have understood. :rolleyes:
 
Ed Sutton said:
If Pavel had said 'binary' instead of 'boolean' I'd have understood. :rolleyes:
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Sorry Dave about Boolean. In my world it is a very common word but I understand that it is not so in everybody's universe and it escaped my filter. I hate it when people use specialized terms when communicating with non specialists and I try to avoid using such words.
 
Ed Sutton said:
They're painters.
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You and I agree on that. They are both well respected artists. However if I am a graphic designer as Droj says, than these and other well known painters must be graphic designers too.
 
Pavel M said:
In my world it is a very common word but I understand that it is not so in everybody's universe.
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Definitely rare in the world of "Big Data" that I inhabited for thirty (often very) odd years.

I do remember one project meeting where a management twerp wittered on about us using "Boolean Logic to ensure the best outcome". In a room full of data analysts and coders it swiftly became obvious that he was the only one who knew what he was on about, if he did!

In photography, as in life generally, it's a good idea not to over think things or waste everyone's time trying to impress. "Just have fun", has always been my policy...

Girls photographing P1011478.JPG
 
Pavel M said:
You and I agree on that. They are both well respected artists. However if I am a graphic designer as Droj says, than these and other well known painters must be graphic designers too.
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From the perspective of 2021 given the way their most well known styles have been appropriated (particularly Mondrian's) by graphic designers, and how most works are known only from small scale reproductions, I can see how that conclusion could be arrived at.
 
Ed Sutton said:
I can see how that conclusion could be arrived at.
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At the end of the day, many erroneous tags are attached to many inappropriate things.

George Orwell made something of a career out of pointing this out but, ironically, many people misunderstand both his deliberate misuse of words and the point he was trying to make. The thing is: trying to put a name to something as nebulous as a style of painting or a type of photography will only create confusion.

Just calling things by their most obvious characteristic (such as: drawing, painting, photograph, etc.) seems to me to be far less confusing than using sub-categories that are recognised by a very limited audience.
 
This is quite hard to summarise in a post that is succinct enough to digest, but I've had a go. I'm sure I'll refine it.

There are many technical aspect to a good photograph which people on here are very well versed. Mastery of these aspects can produce very pleasing images, ones which might be entered in competitions to be judged. And, as we know, art is the expression of an idea by a creator using a medium, which in this case a photographic image.

If there was a sliding scale between the two, somewhere along the line the intent of artistic expression > the intent to create a good photograph (and mastery of those technical aspects). Art photography can of course be both but the emphasis is on intent.
The photography is reduced to just a palette to express something. Additions, montaging, editing can be used to distort the finished article completely from the original image or images if needed (just look at the OP's avatar pic). As we all know, a photograph is a 3D space captured in time and rendered in 2D captured using light. Art photography does not need to be limited by this, but is built from this.

Also, the intent does not need to come just from the image, but from written statements, and what the viewer knows about the creator. I think this all adds up to become Art photography.
 
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How to Become a Successful Fine Art* Photographer

Guest post by Gordon Lewis SA** Do you want to see your photographs shown and celebrated in art galleries, modern art museums, monographs, collections, and all them other high-class places? Well my friend, that won’t be easy. The fine art...
theonlinephotographer.typepad.com

Edit to add that Gordon Lewis is/was Shutterfinger:
shutterfinger.typepad.com

Shutterfinger

"Capturing the world, one click at a time." Gordon Lewis' reflections on amateur photography and the gear it takes to do it.
shutterfinger.typepad.com
 
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sphexx said:

How to Become a Successful Fine Art* Photographer

Guest post by Gordon Lewis SA** Do you want to see your photographs shown and celebrated in art galleries, modern art museums, monographs, collections, and all them other high-class places? Well my friend, that won’t be easy. The fine art...
theonlinephotographer.typepad.com

Edit to add that Gordon Lewis is/was Shutterfinger:
shutterfinger.typepad.com

Shutterfinger

"Capturing the world, one click at a time." Gordon Lewis' reflections on amateur photography and the gear it takes to do it.
shutterfinger.typepad.com
Click to expand...
Well, this post is provocative, so you are well on the way to be a fine art photographer, I guess :eek:. The article is in my experience a nonsense and it comes across as sour grapes. Perhaps a touch of sour grapes on your part since you reposted it
 
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I'd always understood 'fine art' photography as being about nekkid laydees, although these days that doesn't seem to be the case so much.

Pavel M said:
You are entitled to think what you like about my favourites. The main question is how much is your up to date unconventional artists heroes reflected in your own work. I have only access to a handful of your landscapes here, so I can not tell.
Click to expand...

That wasn't a comment about your work, so much as one of the ideas that rather romanticises the idea of an artist being compelled to produce their work regardless of whether it's valued or not, also using it to identify who is an artist and who isn't.

I don't have any unconventional artist heroes, and I'd say there are few photographers whose work I'd try to reflect in my own. It's not that I'm so great, but I'm happy to take the kinds of pictures that click for me - the scenes that pass by that I see and grab - and want to keep making those. The idea of expressing thoughts and feelings through pictures I take is of interest, but art for itself is not.

A big danger with art seems to be that you're either an insider or an outsider. A little like being at school again, if the cool kids say you're cool then you're cool, and if they say you have fleas then you have fleas in the eyes of everyone else, even though in both situations it's the same you. Generally in the adult world that sort of behaviour has been left behind, but with art and photography it can still be a thing sometimes. Mention the game and you've lost.
 
Pavel M said:
Well, this post is provocative, so you are well on the way to be a fine art photographer, I guess :eek:. The article is in my experience a nonsense and it comes across as sour grapes. Perhaps a touch of sour grapes on your part since you reposted it
Click to expand...

Sorry you were offended, not the intention, but you need to lighten up a bit ;).
 
sphexx said:
Sorry you were offended, not the intention, but you need to lighten up a bit ;).
Click to expand...
If you say so. I generally do not like jokes at other's expense. I came here to this forum to discuss issues. For comedy, I go elsewhere. I will decide whether or not I need to lighten up
 
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