JPG: Stories: Feature Story: Is Photography Art?

Feature Story

Is Photography Art?

By Bill Morrison

9 Sep 2009

Someone once suggested that photography was not "art", in the sense that paintings or sculptures are. His premise was that art is a function of creating something which did not previously exist...of imagining something and rendering it by hand. His assault continued as he opined that photography is just a function of creative technical execution, but not an art medium. (By the way, he is a cardiac surgeon, so not a daft individual.)

Certainly photography "captures" it's subject as it exists at that moment. Whereas other art forms often start from nothing...a blank canvas, lump of clay, block of marble...photography almost always starts with something, or someone.

Art is certainly an expression of imagination...of mentally "seeing" something that's possible and then rendering it to media. Whether canvas or clay, the idea, the starting point is blank, unformed. Whether abstract or a literal interpretation, you could say that art is the product of one's imagination...what they see converted into something others can see (sometimes).

Yet there is also a sizeable technical execution layer to art. Whether a blending of colors, of heat firing a form or of utilizing the right tools...all art forms require some technical competence in the medium, it's tools and a deftness at execution.

But the art of photography is actually a reflection of the art that IS the subject. The human form...or nature...can not be considered anything short of art. Each is an original, and no two moments are the same. And even mechanical or architectural photography subjects (bridges, buildings, gears) were wrought at the hands of an "artist"...be they a builder, a fabricator or other laborer.

So photography is the art of capturing life in the moment, with the broadest definition of "life". And that life-in-the-moment as rendered to film (or sensor) requires creativity, judgment, technical execution and yes, imagination...to see something that might not be readily apparent.

Whereas painting and sculpture begins with nothing, photography often starts with too much...and requires narrowing the perspective to a singular point of attention, of focus.

For example, a tight composition of hands held in prayer doesn't require seeing the surroundings to communicate the intimacy of that "moment". A high contrast black & white curve of a person's shoulder is minimalist, yet compelling, when executed well. The curving lines of a suspension bridge weaving across the frame creates movement and direction.

So photography's art comes from it's ability to stop time and (sometimes) reflect someone else's art...God or man... and hopefully does it in a truthful, creative and inspiring way. (Didn't the impressionists do the same with fields of flowers or scenes of Parisian's by the lake?)

Each photograph is a moment in time...a singular moment never to be exactly duplicated. So, every photograph is an original. Truly good photographs don't simply happen...they are imagined, considered, planned and created...often the pure intersection of technical expertise and imagination.

If that's not art, I don't know what is.

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Hi there!

thought you might like this submission to JPG Magazine. If you do, vote it up!

http://jpgmag.com/stories/13142

Thanks,
—The JPG team

9 responses

Markus Weber said (9 Sep 2009):
Hi, this question is as old as the medium itself and was fought hard-knuckle style, sometimes.

In my opinion it doesn't really matter whether you declare it as art or artisanship. It's something you can execute with passion and add a certain value to the 'real world' with. The borders are not that obvious.

Susan Sontag said in her book 'On photography' photography is not as artful as e.g. literature, because you don't put your own pain in it but the pain of others. You can agree or agree to disagree, whatsoever.

The question she raises about the 'exploitative nature' of photography is something that concerns me to a much higher degree than thet 'art or not' issue. Maybe because I'm mostly interested in learning more about the people and myself while shooting.
Bill Morrison said (9 Sep 2009):
A simple 'yes' would have sufficed. :-)

Thanks for your comments...
Zerina Phillip said (9 Sep 2009):
Photography is truly an art. We follow guideline, focus and we creates. Capturing a feather in flight and make it a masterpiece, or a child eating ice cream and it is dripping down the cone. I like your story/essay.

http://jpgmag.com/stories/13118
Scott Sandler said (9 Sep 2009):
Lovely photographs
Danny Arman said (12 Sep 2009):
I understand your friend's point, but I disagree with him. The idea that one person can define "art," and somehow determine what activities fall under its purview, strikes me as precisely the sort of narrow thinking that art is intended to challenge.

I will say that photography is, on its face, reductionist in nature. As photographers, we reduce our three-dimensional experiences into a two-dimensional world of shapes, shades and hues. In that sense, we are reducing the world, and not creating or producing in the same sense as a painter or sculpturor might. But art is never about the actual product that is produced. It is not about the tangible thing that we can hold or see. Art is about how that thing makes us feel, what it helps us understand, whether it can inspire.

To define art by asking how it was produced misses the mark. Art is meant to challenge us, and we don't meet that challenge when we try to assign it a one-sentence definition.
Markus Weber said (14 Sep 2009):
@Danny: I'd agree with you, but once I heard a pretty tempting 'one-sentence definition'. Someone said: "Art ist the interspace between the artist and an audience." I like that approach.
Cee Matos gave props (18 Sep 2009):
Love the Story...Yes, Photography is an ART...I definitely voted for this one.
Maileilani Kealoha-Carpino gave props (20 Sep 2009):
I agree wholeheartedly that Photography is an art!
Lynda Jeffers gave props (23 Sep 2009):
One definition of art I found is 'the products of human creativity'. Therefore as a photographer I believe I am creating an image, I am taking a subject, be that a landscape, a portrait or creating a situation to take a photo of, I am creating the image to be captured by using my camera. An artist painting a picture also has to decide what to keep in or leave out of a painting in the same way. Therefore a resounding YES, photography is art! Great thought provoking story and great pics, my vote!