[eddie1960]

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

great explanation John. I've seen many a mediocre shot produced by someone using a leica m9 (because he can afford the best so to speak - too bad he lacks in artistic talent) and on the flip side i've seen some truly wonderful work produced with the cheapest of cameras (Holgas old inexpensive fixed lens rangefinders, $200 digital ps and yes iphones) these almost always came down to vision and talent on the part of the user and had little to do with the gear. this holds true in many fields. Nice gear may make the job technically easier to achieve but it won't provide you with the vision or talent to create something. One of my favourite guitarists (Chris Spedding) used a cheap sears guitar and no effects peddles for years because it was easy and cheap to replace the sear piece when it got stolen on the road. to this day he still does stuff that i can't imagine with the most basic of gear (every time he plays here the room is filled with guitarists watching his every move)

[Winder]

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?

For the purpose of "art", NO. Art is about the creation and communication. How that is achieved or the media that is used is not as important or often even relevant. The only time I would have an issue with staging work is if the creator is trying to deceive the viewer. Documentary photography is art in the oldest form. Capa's was a documentary photographer and while that is art, it is held to a higher standard. There are hundreds of painting of war which are ultimately artistic renderings of a historical event painted in a studio. Why can't a photographer do the same thing in a studio? The only time I have issue is if the photographer fails to note that the image is altered/manipulated/staged. Is the photographer presenting a lie to the viewer?

I know a very talented photographer who has done work and is very active in an organization that works to promote clean rivers and fight pollution. Several of his images that have been used (by the organization) have been stages where he brought in trash and dead fish as props to create some very striking images. It helps raise money, but I have an issue with the lie that he is presenting. Now every time I see a picture from a group trying to raise money I wonder if it is fake.

[alohadave]

Do you believe photography is an art that is different from more traditional forms? If so, what quality separates photography from painting or sculpture? If not, how do you see it melding with(or perhaps overtaking) traditional art forms?

Most art forms are additive in nature. You add colors and brushstrokes to a painting, you add notes to music, and etc.

With photography, you selectively remove elements to create. Use the frame to exclude that tree to the left of your subject. Use a longer focal length to remove that messy bush in the foreground. Use lighting to remove emphasis on something in the background.

[RioRico]

Most art forms are additive in nature.

But even those additive arts require framing, exclusion, RULES. At some point the canvas can have too much paint, the music can have too many notes (cf AMADEUS). And the greatest failing of a photograph is often to have too much detail -- unless the photo is of something where that detail is important.

Meanwhile, I think too many of us have a limited notion of just what constitutes photography. It's not only pointing a device that looks like a camera -- "You just stand there looking cute, and when something moves, you shoot!" Traffic cams, xerography, making a room or cave or boxcar or airplane hangar into a pinhole camera, heliograms, machine vision, more technologies than I can remember at the moment -- these are all photography. Read a FOCAL PRESS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHOTOGRAPHY (any edition) to get some idea of what's encompassed by the term.

And photography (writing-drawing with light) easily hybridizes with other forms of imagery, from manipulating Polaroids to hand-tinting B&W prints to sonograms to silk-screening to building animations to whatever else we can think of. As such, a camera is just another tool for making images, another pen in the pocket. Some types of photography are unique. Snapshots are unique because they're so easy. But photography consists of much more than snapshots. I hope. Try to imagine something more that what's generated by a digicam's rendering engine, eh?

[Gene Temple]

I reckon you can figure out sooner or later what people like to see in a photo, but that doesn't necessarily make it unique. One of my musician buddies told me "a lot of people can play simple music but not many can play simple music good". I imagine its the same for photos. And really, what's unique to one guy isn't to another. A great piece of advice from DamnBrit who told me in the midst of a critique, "remember its your vision" Or something to that effect. Looking for something unique to photograph is a helluva challenge in itself, that is if you have a job and limited time to do so.

[Ron Kruger]

great explanation John. I've seen many a mediocre shot produced by someone using a leica m9 (because he can afford the best so to speak - too bad he lacks in artistic talent) and on the flip side i've seen some truly wonderful work produced with the cheapest of cameras (Holgas old inexpensive fixed lens rangefinders, $200 digital ps and yes iphones) these almost always came down to vision and talent on the part of the user and had little to do with the gear. this holds true in many fields. Nice gear may make the job technically easier to achieve but it won't provide you with the vision or talent to create something. One of my favourite guitarists (Chris Spedding) used a cheap sears guitar and no effects peddles for years because it was easy and cheap to replace the sear piece when it got stolen on the road. to this day he still does stuff that i can't imagine with the most basic of gear (every time he plays here the room is filled with guitarists watching his every move)

Last spring, I bought the first P&S I've owned in almost four decades of doing this. I bought it to play around with and investigate underwater photography in fresh water streams and rivers. Paid $150 for it. Before the charge came due, I sold two inside illustration and two covers from it. Shortly after buying it, by the way, I started checking out threads devoted to P&S photography and came across quite a few threads complaining that this was the worst camera they had ever owned.
While taking shots with this "worst" camera that turned out good enough for magazines covers may make me a better technician, I hardly think it makes me an "artist." Because (once I figured out how to use it and what it could do) I set out specifically to capture the images that sold, it does indicate I have a "photographic vision," but to me that is more due to an aquaired knowledge of photographic technology than artistic "talent." I wasn't born with any of this. I learned it, mostly from decades of mistakes. That more dilligence and persistence than art.

[Manel Brand]

Do you believe photography is an art that is different from more traditional forms? If so, what quality separates photography from painting or sculpture? If not, how do you see it melding with(or perhaps overtaking) traditional art forms?

To the OP and to whom it may concern.

Regarding your initial and important question about photography as a genuine art form, the following mindful words may give you one more interesting view on the subject.
Let's hear from Alfred Stieglitz, an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form:

"Photography is not an art. Neither is painting, nor sculpture, literature or music. They are only different media for the individual to express his aesthetic feelings…
You do not have to be a painter or a sculptor to be an artist. You may be a shoemaker. You may be creative as such. And, if so, you are a greater artist than the majority of the painters whose work is shown in the art galleries of today."
Alfred Stieglitz, March 14 1922, "Is Photography a Failure?" (copy & paste 90's DTP sort of technique used on Wikipedia web page)

A last comment to a sad but fairly significant issue: a participant on the discussion that calls himself "theunart", meaning the one who is deprived from Stieglitz's aesthetic feeling and therefore unable to produce artistic value, has said some gibberish on this questions.
Should we understand that his standing on this matter is analogous to the ones from people who, unable to have a normal sexual activity or deprived from their innate capabilities, "the unsexed", have something to say about what is like to have sexual intercourse?
Definitely, a sad and delusional state of mind, only to be dealt by the most skillful, well paid shrink available on the planet. I remember Freud writing something about castration anxiety and the loss of artistic drive, as well as all the implications it has on the genesis of neurosis.
I, as a true follower of Freud's theory on human behavior, need to further investigate this case, but will report soon, as something more solid can be established. That's a promise.

[theunartist]

To the OP and to whom it may concern.

Regarding your initial and important question about photography as a genuine art form, the following mindful words may give you one more interesting view on the subject.
Let's hear from Alfred Stieglitz, an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form:

"Photography is not an art. Neither is painting, nor sculpture, literature or music. They are only different media for the individual to express his aesthetic feelings…
You do not have to be a painter or a sculptor to be an artist. You may be a shoemaker. You may be creative as such. And, if so, you are a greater artist than the majority of the painters whose work is shown in the art galleries of today."
Alfred Stieglitz, March 14 1922, "Is Photography a Failure?" (copy & paste 90's DTP sort of technique used on Wikipedia web page)

A last comment to a sad but fairly significant issue: a participant on the discussion that calls himself "theunart", meaning the one who is deprived from Stieglitz's aesthetic feeling and therefore unable to produce artistic value, has said some gibberish on this questions.
Should we understand that his standing on this matter is analogous to the ones from people who, unable to have a normal sexual activity or deprived from their innate capabilities, "the unsexed", have something to say about what is like to have sexual intercourse?
Definitely, a sad and delusional state of mind, only to be dealt by the most skillful, well paid shrink available on the planet. I remember Freud writing something about castration anxiety and the loss of artistic drive, as well as all the implications it has on the genesis of neurosis.
I, as a true follower of Freud's theory on human behavior, need to further investigate this case, but will report soon, as something more solid can be established. That's a promise.

That makes a lot of sense, thanks!

[Manel Brand]

That makes a lot of sense, thanks!

Never mind! Hope it helps you, overcoming your distress.

[Rense]

Saw this quote, and remembered this thread....

Of all forms of expression, photography is the only one which seizes the instant in its flight. - Henri Cartier-Bresson - February 22, 1968., The World of Henri Cartier-Bresson by Henri Cartier-Bresson

[Sparkle]

The skill of photograph, its science and rules must be learned before one attempts the "Art of Photography" which requires the ability to use the equipment to its best advantage and possible break some "rules" to achieve something imagined in the mind's eye or better capture the aesthetic renditioning of a particular object, person or scene and communicate that properly to the viewer.

[kryss]

The skill of photograph, its science and rules must be learned before one attempts the "Art of Photography" which requires the ability to use the equipment to its best advantage and possible break some "rules" to achieve something imagined in the mind's eye or better capture the aesthetic renditioning of a particular object, person or scene and communicate that properly to the viewer.

Wow,I actually agree with you.Happy New Year.

[TaoMaas]

Saw this quote, and remembered this thread....

Of all forms of expression, photography is the only one which seizes the instant in its flight. - Henri Cartier-Bresson

I tend to agree with you and Bresson. I think the quality that makes photography unique is it's ties to the real world. Granted...those ties are not exact, but until someone develops a way to freeze time and recreate all layers of time in a 3D environment, photography is what we have.

[eddie1960]

Last spring, I bought the first P&S I've owned in almost four decades of doing this. I bought it to play around with and investigate underwater photography in fresh water streams and rivers. Paid $150 for it. Before the charge came due, I sold two inside illustration and two covers from it. Shortly after buying it, by the way, I started checking out threads devoted to P&S photography and came across quite a few threads complaining that this was the worst camera they had ever owned.
While taking shots with this "worst" camera that turned out good enough for magazines covers may make me a better technician, I hardly think it makes me an "artist." Because (once I figured out how to use it and what it could do) I set out specifically to capture the images that sold, it does indicate I have a "photographic vision," but to me that is more due to an aquaired knowledge of photographic technology than artistic "talent." I wasn't born with any of this. I learned it, mostly from decades of mistakes. That more diligence and persistence than art.

I just looked at your web site Ron, You definitely have talent and an "eye". Only so much can be put down to Technical expertise. And for all artists diligence and persistence is how they develop. you're not born with the ability to play an instrument, paint or draw. You most definitely can have an aesthetic sense and an ability to see and hear things others can't. Technology enables you but all the persistence in the world won't make a good image/song/story/sculpture. It starts with a drive to express yourself, in whatever your chosen medium.

[Sparkle]

Wow,I actually agree with you.Happy New Year.

"Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires."

Wonders never cease. Happy New Year to you too.