I am writing a paper on photography as an art. I'm comparing it to other forms of art, and explaining why photography is art. The research is pretty much getting at, "What is art?". Any books, articles, etc? Thanks everyone! Also, it would be great if the sources were relatively easy to read. I'm not exactly writing a PhD level paper. Thanks again!
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Sources Needed
- Thread starter Jasey Rae
- Start date
Michael Fontana
pro member
Hi Jasey
Man Ray stated a lot about photography beeing at or not art.
Man Ray stated a lot about photography beeing at or not art.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Jasey,
You are welcome to see what is written and then make sure that you take pains to put the ideas gleaned from here and other sources in quotes with the credit to the writer and reference to the URL. Othewise people are being disrespected. I know it seems harsh of me, but it's just important to remind everyone that © for what id written is owned by the wirter. We have license to use that for OPF. For an esay the minumum is to quote! So have fun and explore! BTW, what photography do you do and do you have a gallery for us to visit. Not any requirement, but would be nice!
Good luck,
Asher
interesting subject
Hi,
As a working artist using photography as a medium, I guess I have a lot of thoughts about this too.
Certainly much of what I see in the way of photo exhibits in museums and galleries around the world I would not consider art, but instead view it as documentary. There are a few photographers that crossed the line from documentary photography to art - Lange and Salgado to name a few, but they didn't do it for every image. Most don't for even a few, but mistakenly call it art.
In fact most of what I see out there makes me angry. You can't just snap a few pictures of a subject or place and call it art. There has to be more to it than that. All the classical ingredients to any work of art - body of the emotion/statement/message/idea plus good use of composition and other techniques, ie the craft component.
A lot of good photography that I would not consider art falls into the range of what I would classify as nature photography. If I see one more picture of a duck that is labeled as 'fine art' I will throw up. Come on people, it might be nice, it might be finely crafted but a photo of a duck in a pond is only a photo of a duck in a pond.
There are quite a few wonderful artists working with photography and I think it should be easy for you to establish that photography is considered an art form along with painting etc.
Eric
Hi,
As a working artist using photography as a medium, I guess I have a lot of thoughts about this too.
Certainly much of what I see in the way of photo exhibits in museums and galleries around the world I would not consider art, but instead view it as documentary. There are a few photographers that crossed the line from documentary photography to art - Lange and Salgado to name a few, but they didn't do it for every image. Most don't for even a few, but mistakenly call it art.
In fact most of what I see out there makes me angry. You can't just snap a few pictures of a subject or place and call it art. There has to be more to it than that. All the classical ingredients to any work of art - body of the emotion/statement/message/idea plus good use of composition and other techniques, ie the craft component.
A lot of good photography that I would not consider art falls into the range of what I would classify as nature photography. If I see one more picture of a duck that is labeled as 'fine art' I will throw up. Come on people, it might be nice, it might be finely crafted but a photo of a duck in a pond is only a photo of a duck in a pond.
There are quite a few wonderful artists working with photography and I think it should be easy for you to establish that photography is considered an art form along with painting etc.
Eric