The art is in capturing that still or moving thing in a way that speaks to someone.
Maybe this lack of desire to turn your photos into art instead of cold documentation is holding you back.... I know it holds me back when I pay too much attention to all the technicals, and forget to compose something with my soul instead of my head.
To me the quote isn't saying a photograph cannot be art. It's saying that the photographer can use a camera to capture art. In other words a photograph isn't inherently art, it's the skill of the photographer that makes a photo art.
I believe photography is an art just like painting, drawing, sculpture... it's showing the world (or subject) through the eyes of an individual. If you take 10 photographers to one location... you will come out with 10 unique photographs. They did not just document what was there, but show us what they saw in their eyes & mind. The camera is used like a paint brush or pencil is to an artist.
I might be too rational, but you cannot compare painting and photography. Painting requires talent that very few people have. Photography does not require talent in the more general manner. I do not have talent but I think I shot descent pictures. Maybe photography is an easy way for us to describe what we see with our eyes and how our brain is able to interpret the vision of 'life'.
What I am sure is that we are not Van Gogh, Delacroix, David, and many other talented people that makes painting so exceptional
I might be too rational, but you cannot compare painting and photography. Painting requires talent that very few people have. Photography does not require talent in the more general manner. I do not have talent but I think I shot descent pictures. Maybe photography is an easy way for us to describe what we see with our eyes and how our brain is able to interpret the vision of 'life'.
What I am sure is that we are not Van Gogh, Delacroix, David, and many other talented people that makes painting so exceptional
Hmmm... Next week one of my images will be hanging in an ART Gallery among the paintings and collages and mixed media. Shhh... don't tell them its not art. ;)
I might be too rational, but you cannot compare painting and photography. Painting requires talent that very few people have. Photography does not require talent in the more general manner. I do not have talent but I think I shot descent pictures. Maybe photography is an easy way for us to describe what we see with our eyes and how our brain is able to interpret the vision of 'life'.
What I am sure is that we are not Van Gogh, Delacroix, David, and many other talented people that makes painting so exceptional
Good photography requires talent that very few people have, either.
Most people can paint a house, few can paint a good portrait.
Many people can take pictures of people, few can capture a good portrait.
Photography is absolutely an art. It requires talent as much as any other form of art. Photography (just like painting) is a way we express how we see the world around us. Only instead of canvas, we capture that vision with a camera and then enhance it even further until others see what we see.
Maybe everyone can shoot pictures, but not everyone can produce great photographs. There are great skilled photographers and there are "wanna bes", just like there are imitation artists....
What I am sure is that we are not Van Gogh, Delacroix, David, and many other talented people that makes painting so exceptional
No, we are not. But much like Van Gogh we use the tools of our time. Van Gogh, as I remember, never once used primitive tools to make etchings into a cave wall.
Give a 5-year old paints and a paintbrush. Will the child create "art", likely not. The child will put paint to paper with little thought. Give the same paints and brush to someone with a strong artistic skill and the result will be much different.
The same goes with photography. Not all photographs are art, but in the hands of an artist, photography CAN be art. If your photography isn't art, ask yourself - are YOU an artist?
Edit to mention: I am an art school graduate - not photography school. I began my artistic career with drawings and paintings (classical art), but switched to the camera for a different challenge.
To know how and when to capture an event, a pose, what lighting to use to best depict the image you desire, to forever stop time and space, to be there even though you are now miles away, to feel a feeling someone emotes at a moment gone forever, to touch inocence even though you have for so long been jaded, to almost smell the scent of a women from an image you colected into little electronic pixels after your rapturious venture is not an accident.
Or is it?
If it is, photography is not an art, if it isn't it is an art.
I might be too rational, but you cannot compare painting and photography. Painting requires talent that very few people have. Photography does not require talent in the more general manner. I do not have talent but I think I shot descent pictures. Maybe photography is an easy way for us to describe what we see with our eyes and how our brain is able to interpret the vision of 'life'.
What I am sure is that we are not Van Gogh, Delacroix, David, and many other talented people that makes painting so exceptional
You cerrtainly can compare photography to painting, why not? They are but two media for creating visual works.
Photography requires a different skillset than painting, similar in some ways, but different nevertheless. That doesn't make it not art.
I don't know what "we" you are referring to when you say "we are not Van Gogh, Delacroix, David, and many other talented people that makes painting so exceptional", but to suggest that there are no Masters of photography on par with the Master painters simply shows an ignorance of photography.
I might be too rational, but you cannot compare painting and photography. Painting requires talent that very few people have. Photography does not require talent in the more general manner. I do not have talent but I think I shot descent pictures. Maybe photography is an easy way for us to describe what we see with our eyes and how our brain is able to interpret the vision of 'life'.
What I am sure is that we are not Van Gogh, Delacroix, David, and many other talented people that makes painting so exceptional
You cerrtainly can compare photography to painting, why not? They are but two media for creating visual works.
Photography requires a different skillset than painting, similar in some ways, but different nevertheless. That doesn't make it not art.
I don't know what "we" you are referring to when you say "we are not Van Gogh, Delacroix, David, and many other talented people that makes painting so exceptional", but to suggest that there are no Masters of photography on par with the Master painters simply shows an ignorance of photography.
I fully agree ... look at someone like Phillip Stewart Charis and tell me that ain't art (I may not love the style - but you have got to respect it for what it is)
Of course photography is art! Maybe not all--what we would call snapshots, and even **some** journalism photos are not what we would traditionally call art. But how could you call Ansel Adam's work anything but art? Or creative photography, such as abstracts?
If it's not a picture of your own children, and you and others would like to see it hanging on your wall, or a gallery wall, if it makes you "think"(tm) or touches your emotions, then it's art.
