[RioRico]

to Quote Henri Cartier-Bresson

""Photography is a craft. Many want to make art out of it, but we are simply workmen who must do their job well".

HCB trained as a painter, to make art. See the Wikipedia entry on HCB.

As a young boy, Cartier-Bresson owned a Box Brownie, using it for taking holiday snapshots; he later experimented with a 3×4 inch view camera... After unsuccessfully trying to learn music, as a boy Cartier-Bresson was introduced to oil painting by his uncle Louis, a gifted painter. "Painting has been my obsession from the time that my 'mythical father', my father's brother, led me into his studio during the Christmas holidays in 1913, when I was five years old. There I lived in the atmosphere of painting; I inhaled the canvases." ...

In 1927, at the age of 19, Cartier-Bresson entered a private art school and the Lhote Academy, the Parisian studio of the Cubist painter and sculptor André Lhote. Lhote's ambition was to integrate the Cubists' approach to reality with classical artistic forms; he wanted to link the French classical tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David to Modernism. Cartier-Bresson also studied painting with society portraitist Jacques Émile Blanche...

Lhote took his pupils to the Louvre to study classical artists and to Parisian galleries to study contemporary art. Cartier-Bresson's interest in modern art was combined with an admiration for the works of the Renaissance—of masterpieces of Jan van Eyck, Paolo Uccello, Masaccio and Piero della Francesca. Cartier-Bresson often regarded Lhote as his teacher of "photography without a camera." Although Cartier-Bresson gradually began to be restless under Lhote's "rule-laden" approach to art, his rigorous theoretical training would later help him to confront and resolve problems of artistic form and composition in photography.

Some artists try to pass themselves off as craftsmen, and vice-versa; or maybe the labels are irrelevant, or are useful mostly for marketing. I recall certain noted guitarists who say they're not artists, just fingerboard technicians, but that doesn't seem to impede sales much.

[Rense]

Lots of true and probably untrue things being said, I believe that the use of a photo camera makes photography unique.....

First of all, I think photography is a skill. You have to learn it, and some people never will really. Everyone can draw a portrait. Everyone can make a photo. The first by moving a pencil or brush, the second by clicking a button. Is drawing or painting an art? Yes, sometimes. But first of all, it's a skill, as would be most obvious if you see one of my drawings . It's a skill I don't have. The same holds for photography: it's a skill, but pushing a button isn't as hard as the eye-hand coordination needed for drawing or painting. So, probably the gap between the skilled and the buttonpushers is a bit more difficult to see.

And then from skill to art. There are many who can paint or draw a portrait, with a acceptable result. That is: I can recognise the person, it's skillfully done. Apart from creating a portrait, there is nothing creative in these portraits though..... Only the very gifted make drawings to call art...... Or they add something new, something creative, that makes us say it's art.... I think this is the same with photography. The skills are hard to learn, but they can be learned. For making it art, there is creativity needed. In subject - hasn't everything been depicted yet? - in technique, in material, in PP......

What I am trying to say is: art has to do with creativity, with the search for new expression forms. I am happy when I reach the level of the skilled eventually.

And this is the same as RioRico has put in other words above, I think.....

EDIT: oh, and I believe art has to do with interpretation as well..... It's ones interpretation of reality, not a mere report of reality. Having said that, I often can give a certain interpretation to my photos, but that is not the point of what I meant. It's rare to find myself in a situation where I want to make a certain photo as an interpretation of reality - so before I release the shutter.... It's not THAT hard afterwards....but a priori......

[Ash]

A lot of good insight in this thread so far. Pretty obvious what makes photography unique - the only visual art that employs light to record the artform on a canvas. Rense touched on the skill required to create art with the discipline, and since so many people in the world are now just clicking shutters there is less unique about the actual vocation, particularly as a hobby.

Nevertheless, the skilled photographer is unique - few can master the style and refined nature of that one photographer, and thus the work created by that photographer is exclusive and distinct from others..

[theunartist]

Nevertheless, the skilled photographer is unique - few can master the style and refined nature of that one photographer, and thus the work created by that photographer is exclusive and distinct from others..

A friend once said to me, "creativity is an objective truth that cannot be taught" - this IMAO is the way to describe art and artists. Skill has little or nothing to do with art, art IS creativity. You cannot learn to become an artist, you cannot be taught color and you cannot be taught composition, it is an instinct...

I have a love hate relationship with photography, on one hand it is an infinitely creative & instant process, but on the other hand it is way too technical, e.g. camera > lens > computer > software... I have more respect for film and available light photographers than digital or studio photographers as artists. I would make the bet that someone walking about with something like a Holga, is an artist.

I have friends that are both artists, i.e. painters, sculptors, etc. and photographer, there are very few of them out there. There are some that I consider great painters, only to find out later, they are "Film/Photography" majors and they are very technically accomplished photographers and have a great "eye", aka composition...

Photography is a skill that you can learn, but the rest of it, is up to you...

EDIT - I guess I should answer the original Q. Today's Photography (Digital) is unique in that it captures an instant in time, this instant really happened and we froze it! But at the same time that real life instant was captured, we captured it in digital format only to exist in a world where nothing exists outside of the virtual.

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Last edited by theunartist; 12-31-2010 at 07:55 AM.

[TaoMaas]

I probably worded my original question wrong. I didn't mean to turn this into a discussion about whether or not photography is art. I started to call it a "process" or a "craft", but I thought that was somewhat demeaning to painting or sculpture. For those who agree that the final picture is the only thing that matters, maybe the question should have been, "Is there anything in photography that's worth saving?" On the thread about "Is PP cheating?", there were some KILLER photos posted by Usuga that featured quite a bit of PP work. I especially liked the one where he turned his brother-in-law into a werewolf. Because it was SO different from the basic shot of his brother-in-law, I began to wonder about the end results. I asked, "I love the final pic as a photograph, but would I value it more or less if this had been a pen and ink drawing? Is the end result all that matters or is the process important, too?" If the end result truly is all that matters, then I believe that computers might well be the ultimate art form. Is it important whether a work started it's life as a blank piece of paper or a series of unrelated photos? Do we care whether someone acually sang a song or if the the finished product was created from generic notes that were tuned to pitch by a vocoder? Does it matter if someone carves a manificent sculpture with hammer and chisel or whether they design it in a CAD program and have it carved by a CNC machine? Is the end product really all that matters or is there value in the process as well?

[eddie1960]

I Do we care whether someone acually sang a song or if the the finished product was created from generic notes that were tuned to pitch by a vocoder?

This would be the only point I have to really disagree with. Auto tune drives me absolutely nuts (as it does almost all my musician friends - I'm quite tied to the music industry local and know a number of studio musicians who can't stand it, on the flip side they make a lot of there money because the other members of a band can't play to a Tick (metronome) so they get paid quite well to come in and fix the tracks with their talents

[johnmflores]

What makes it unique? The fact that any idiot with a credit card can claim to do it, which make it simultaneously easier and harder to stand out.

[eddie1960]

What makes it unique? The fact that any idiot with a credit card can claim to do it, which make it simultaneously easier and harder to stand out.

hence all the bands i deal with who don't want to pay because the singers girlfriend has a fancy Canon camera (usually a rebel) - It shows in their promo stuff as well

[Winder]

I probably worded my original question wrong. I didn't mean to turn this into a discussion about whether or not photography is art. I started to call it a "process" or a "craft", but I thought that was somewhat demeaning to painting or sculpture. For those who agree that the final picture is the only thing that matters, maybe the question should have been, "Is there anything in photography that's worth saving?" On the thread about "Is PP cheating?", there were some KILLER photos posted by Usuga that featured quite a bit of PP work. I especially liked the one where he turned his brother-in-law into a werewolf. Because it was SO different from the basic shot of his brother-in-law, I began to wonder about the end results. I asked, "I love the final pic as a photograph, but would I value it more or less if this had been a pen and ink drawing? Is the end result all that matters or is the process important, too?" If the end result truly is all that matters, then I believe that computers might well be the ultimate art form. Is it important whether a work started it's life as a blank piece of paper or a series of unrelated photos? Do we care whether someone acually sang a song or if the the finished product was created from generic notes that were tuned to pitch by a vocoder? Does it matter if someone carves a manificent sculpture with hammer and chisel or whether they design it in a CAD program and have it carved by a CNC machine? Is the end product really all that matters or is there value in the process as well?

I think the process is less important than the result. Imagine if Capa's images from Normandy had been processed properly. Would they be famous today? A mistake in the process lead to some of the most famous images of the war. Art is about communication and evoking an emotional or intellectual response from the viewer. People really do not care about the process.

If you look back at some of the more famous painters or other artists of the Renaissance you will see that many of them ran large workshops. Painting was a trade that was taught by a master to an apprentice in the same way as any other trade. The master painter would simply sign the work that was produced by his workshop even if he/she did not actually paint it. We seem to have a romantic view of art that is quite different that of the past.

[theunartist]

Does it matter if someone carves a manificent sculpture with hammer and chisel or whether they design it in a CAD program and have it carved by a CNC machine? Is the end product really all that matters or is there value in the process as well?

IMHO, yes it does matter! (as per artwork)

Even though almost everything today can be designed, perfected and produced by computers/machines, what would be missing for me is the TACTILE qualities or human touch. You won't be able to feel the brush strokes, or pencil lines, or chisel marks, etc...

Almost everyone I know, would value (respect) real work over digital work. To quote, "Beauty is not in the perfection but in the flaws. It's the crack that makes the plate exquisite." Duane Michals

EDIT - What the dSLR is doing to photography as an art form is the same thing that happened to Graphics company's (that's where the term, "Cut and Paste" came from) in the early 90's when the Desktop Publishing was invented.

[TaoMaas]

What makes it unique? The fact that any idiot with a credit card can claim to do it, which make it simultaneously easier and harder to stand out.

Is that really unique? Anyone with a pencil can do drawings. We're just talking about entrance fees...not qualities of the form itself.

[eddie1960]

EDIT - I guess I should answer the original Q. Today's Photography (Digital) is unique in that it captures an instant in time, this instant really happened and we froze it! But at the same time that real life instant was captured, we captured it in digital format only to exist in a world where nothing exists outside of the virtual.

Great minds think alike

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. - Henri Cartier-Bresson

[TaoMaas]

I think the process is less important than the result. Imagine if Capa's images from Normandy had been processed properly. Would they be famous today? A mistake in the process lead to some of the most famous images of the war. Art is about communication and evoking an emotional or intellectual response from the viewer. People really do not care about the process.

So it doesn't matter whether Capa actually captured his images of Normandy on location or whether he staged them in the studio as his vision of what war was like?

[theunartist]

So it doesn't matter whether Capa actually captured his images of Normandy on location or whether he staged them in the studio as his vision of what war was like?

Kind of like one of my fav movies: Capricorn One

[johnmflores]

Is that really unique? Anyone with a pencil can do drawings. We're just talking about entrance fees...not qualities of the form itself.

Ah, but with drawing and illustration the final result is based 99% upon artist skill/vision and 1% upon the tools. Simply put, if you don't have the skills the most expensive pencils in the world won't help you.

It's different with photography. The final result is, say, 70% dependent upon the photographer skill/vision and 30% upon the tools. So you can have well-heeled photographers with some skill/vision (30%) but the best gear (30%) producing decent (60%) if not spectacular work. Likewise, you can have really creative types producing compelling work with iPhones (70% skill/vision, 1% gear).

Other fine arts like painting, sculpture, etc, are like drawing and weighed heavily towards artist skill/vision. The dependence of photography creates this gray area, a middle grey as it were....

It's these grey areas that