My favorite piece of visual art is the extended liner to New Order’s Republic…mainly somewhat edited photographs, but it says everything that it wants to say much better than most paintings (except Bosch, who created probably my top 2-5 visual artworks, if I’m pressed.)
And I, who am a pretty mediocre photographer and musician, am creating a theme album and liner to go along with it. Again, the photos are key to the album, and there is at least as much creativity in the photo’s as in the music.
Of course photography is art, and if your friend took that photography class along with you, she’d know that! Be a good Doper and get her to enroll with you-- fight ignorance! Plus you get a free roll of film for everyone you bring over to the photography side.
FWIW, this is not entirely meant to be a value judgement upon photography. Many museums divide their collections in what can only be referred to as very academic categories. Photography is separate from paintings not because it is inherently inferior but because it is categorized with prints and other multiples or, less regularly, with works on paper (and, yes, sometimes prints collections within works on paper collections…gnashing of teeth).
That said, photography does belong among the fine arts. Not everyone who picks up a point-and-click camera is a photographer, in the same way that I am not a painter no matter how many paint-by-number kits I complete. Being an artist is not merely a matter of know-how or a mastery of basic technical skills.
I am really glad you clarified that, even though your explanation exposes my ignorance. I’d honestly thought that placement was the curator’s way of treating photography as a red-headed stepchild. Obviously I was mistaken & have been for years! Egad!
I also want to note, re: my frequent and lengthy posts, that I’ve wanted to discuss these subjects w/intelligent people forever & am absolutely thrilled to have found a fascinating goup @SDMB. I’m learning a lot & so enjoy reading everyone’s posts.
Thinking more about my art school days, lo those many years ago, I believe that exceptions were made for photographers who did their own darkroom work. They were considered many levels above the ones who dropped off their film at WalMart.
If I can be excused for a lengthy post, I’ll explain why, IMHO - and of course there are plenty of artists far more accomplished/recognized than me who take different approaches:
In drawing or painting, I don’t know exactly what the piece is going to turn out like. In the course of drawing or painting something you really begin to know your subject and how you feel about it, and as I go along I make constant adjustments based on increased knowledge. I learn what it is that attracted me to the subject, what I was experiencing, how the colors and form make it unique, which contrasts were really important. And how they change when translated to a flat plane. So it’s sort of a collaboration between me, the painting, and the subject matter - a constant gut-check to see that it’s “right”.
If it’s not for that process, then personally I don’t see the fun in doing it.
Obviously photographers can take the extra steps and express increased knowledge. I think it shows in the work. Just snapping a descriptive shot of your car is not the same.
Perhaps, too, that’s why photojournalists can accomplish a great deal visually, because they go back to the subject again and again to tell the story as they’re experiencing it. I thought the posts referring to them made an excellent point.
Of course, that definition of art leaves out the urinal on the wall referred to in an earlier post, but perhaps that would be a good thing.
Very interesting point there, fessie. I take months usually for a stone piece. Yes, the image emerges slowly. Other times, I tear through a lot of it in a day or so. All depends on the Muse at the moment.
I frequently take a lot of time composing through the lens. Lens height, framing, angle of view, etc. While print and develop time does of course make a photo have certain qualities of contrast and grain, it is the basic composition work that to me defines the piece. I can print a shot so it’s more or less contrasty but the shot is what it is.
The creative force comes out in all aspects. At least, to me it does.
I took a seminar on photography (art history, not a photography class per se) and one thing we did for hoots was distribute among the 7 people in the class little black-and-white film disposable cameras-- REALLY point-and-shoot with no focus or anything, and we all stood at the same distance and took a picture of the same potted plant to see what kind of variations we could get, to consider how much choice of composition one could have with those restraints, and (after processing the film all at the same place on the same day) the differences among the prints were interesting. Some really were more pleasant to look at than others, and some came out very oddly. An interesting experiment.
I tried to start a photography thread last week but it dropped like a rock.
A quick glance at pictures of my girlfriend is proof to me that photography is definitely an art. Sap aside, I think a decent definition of art – something I always avoid because I think defining art is just asking for trouble – is that anything that can be used to express oneself is art, and photography would certainly fit that definition.
