Photographic Art - a serious question

Just glad the forecast is looking good for the weekend especially Sunday.... talking about chomping we aim to bath our three horses too this coming Sunday lol, all the very best Rog and hope you manage to get out and enjoy your camera and surroundings this weekend
Regards
kevin
 
Ed Sutton said:
The question for me is more "Why make a photograph to illustrate the idea? What does it being a photograph bring to it that making a graphic doesn't?"
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Nothing.

Back to my bowl of fruit analogy, I could photograph it, or I could paint it, or I could record 4 minutes of video footage of it, or sculpt it. The concept, or idea is still the fruit. What medium you chose to record it with is pretty irrelevant. This is where the dissonance lies. Even photographers will say "Where's the skill in photographing it". Everyone assumed the worth in art is the outward display of craft skills, and in order to do that, the photograph has to be "impressive". I don't get it. The photos are full frame (meaning not cropped), straight from camera, yet perfectly exposed, framed, lit.. shot with precision. What does it matter if the subject I'm pointing the camera at is a beautiful sunset, or a map? If it was a beautiful sunset, it's no more impressive. I didn't MAKE the sunset, I just photographed it.
 
Goldsworthy registered and propagated his work (much of which was fugitive in nature) by photographing it.
 
Ed Sutton said:
The question for me is more "Why make a photograph to illustrate the idea? What does it being a photograph bring to it that making a graphic doesn't?"
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Berger writes about this in ways of telling, in which he says the difference is time and interpretation. In a painting it's a representation of what the artist saw, remembered, wanted to portray and is produced over a period of time. In a photograph, it's a record of that instant.


A drawing or painting is a translation. That is to say each mark on the paper is consciously related, not only to the real or imagined “model”, but also to every mark and space already set out on the paper.
Thus a drawn or painted image is woven together by the energy (or the lassitude, when the drawing is weak) of countless judgements. Every time a figuration is evoked in a drawing, everything about it has been mediated by consciousness, either intuitively or systematically. In a drawing an apple is made round and spherical; in a photograph, the roundness and the light and shade of the apple are received as a given.

This difference between making and receiving also implies a very different relation to time. A drawing contains the time of its own making, and this means that it possesses its own time, independent of the living time of what it portrays. The photograph, by contrast, receives almost instantaneously – usually today at a speed which cannot be perceived by the human eye.
The only time contained in a photograph is the isolated instant of what it shows.

There is another important difference within the times contained by the two kinds of images. The time which exists within a drawing is not uniform. The, artist gives more time to what she or he considers important. A face is ‘likely to contain more time than the sky above it. Time in a drawing accrues according to human value. In a photograph time is uniform: every part of the image has been subjected to a chemical process of uniform duration. In the process of revelation all parts were equal.
 
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Byker28i said:
"Time in a drawing accrues according to human value. In a photograph time is uniform: every part of the image has been subjected to a chemical process of uniform duration. In the process of revelation all parts were equal."
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But - as photographers, we can add or reduce emphasis by certain means such as selective focus ... we're not quite as powerless as he seems to say.
 
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droj said:
You wouldn't make any art with a Canon, they just don't do it. But as you've found, Leicas do it automatically.
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It's a camera, just like any other. How you use it is that matters. Art has to be creative, photography often (my sort of photography) isn't.

A phrase I detest is fine art photography. Its not, its photography.
 
Kevin O'Brian said:
As long as you are happy with your shots then thats all that matters Bill, I was simply Quating what you said in your first post "as you can see, I'm struggling, help me out!" so please!!!! I hope you are not having POP at ME here lol PS my images are within my signature again first post I thought I would try and offer some advice.
Regards
Kevin
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Apologises - "knee-jerk" reaction
 
Ed Sutton said:
Once you have a certain level of understanding 'pretty pictures' are, if not easy to make, but unfulfilling. You already know the rules required to make them. Most people prefer to stay within a comfort zone of the easily described, but some people feel a need to make pictures that challenge them to make - not technically but intellectually - even if they wouldn't describe what they do as art.

Art? Documentary? Landscape? Semi-abstraction? Socio-political comment? Pretty? It's just a picture. The viewer and the context decide what it is beyond that.

DL2_6827.jpg
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To me it is just a picture of a gate and a field. I cannot see beyond that.

I guess I just fall into the camp of liking pretty pictures. I like travel and the outdoors and open space, I enjoy photographing these places and spending time there but I cannot call myself an artist. I am documenting nice places really. I am not creating anything.
 
Kevin O'Brian said:
My Landscape images are my life
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Same here, you have a passion for the hills and outdoors, its clear as soon as you meet you and converse with you. It is who you are. I like the countryside, I capture it in a different style to you for sure, but to me the being in the outdoors when the lights magical is lifes great joy and the taking of the pictures and seeing the light is as much as a joy as taking them. Taking pictures of gates, fire alarms, to me thats crap.

I enjoy interesting architecture, and open cityscapes, I like them. It's what I do and what I enjoy. I write, to probably very few peoples benefit, a blog about where I go, what I see etc.
 
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ST4 said:
but to me the being in the outdoors when the lights magical is lifes great joy and the taking of the pictures and seeing the light is as much as a joy as taking them. Taking pictures of gates, fire alarms, to me thats crap.
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But you're making a distinction between nothing more than subject matter. Why is a shot of a fire alarm less worthy than a shot of a landscape? What makes the landscape more worthy in your opinion?
 
Pookeyhead said:
But you're making a distinction between nothing more than subject matter. Why is a shot of a fire alarm less worthy than a shot of a landscape? What makes the landscape more worthy in your opinion?
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Because it, in my opinion, looks nicer. It interests me, I enjoy being in an interesting landscape. A fire alarm is just a fire alarm. I like the countryside, I like nice cars, I like old and new architecture. I photograph what I like, if I get some money off it, great, but I go with what interests me, nothing more than that really.

I have no interest in animals at all, I would never photograph them. Well, unless I was getting paid to. I can identify a technically good one etc, but to me, I would never get fired up about it. Animals bore me. Landscapes, cityscapes, cars, do not so if I see an image of such a thing, it will spark my curiosity and even inspire me to visit the place.
 
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ST4 said:
Because it, in my opinion, looks nicer. It interests me, I enjoy being in an interesting landscape. A fire alarm is just a fire alarm. I like the countryside, I like nice cars, I like old and new architecture. I photograph what I like, if I get some money off it, great, but I go with what interests me, nothing more than that really.

I have no interest in animals at all, I would never photograph them. Well, unless I was getting paid to.
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Money is irrelevant for this thread.

Having a preference is all well and good, but dismissing something as crap immediately based on first visual impression is a little rash I think. It's like dismissing this work as snapshots because there's nothing visually "wow" about them. They're a cultural document, they're important, and they're interesting. You may, or may not "like" them, but why is liking them as photographs important?

You're making decisions on a photograph's worth based on which looks nicer :) Is that really how we judge an image's worth? Is that how you judge people, or food, or books?
 
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Pookeyhead said:
Money is irrelevant for this thread.

Having a preference is all well and good, but dismissing something as crap immediately based on first visual impression is a little rash I think. It's like dismissing this work as snapshots because there's nothing visually "wow" about them. They're a cultural document, they're important, and they're interesting. You may, or may not "like" them, but why is liking them as photographs important?

You're making decisions on a photograph's worth based on which looks nicer :) Is that really how we judge an image's worth? Is that how you judge people, or food, or books?
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To me a photography is a visual thing. How it looks is everything.
To me food is how it tastes. How it tastes and fills me is everthing
Books. I do not read them. I would rather watch a film
People. If I like them, I like them, if I don't I don't.

I think the images capture the feel of the tube, its an awful method of travel and they capture that awfulness well.
 
ST4 said:
To me a photography is a visual thing. How it looks is everything.
To me food is how it tastes. How it tastes and fills me is everthing
Books. I do not read them. I would rather watch a film
People. If I like them, I like them, if I don't I don't.

I think the images capture the feel of the tube, its an awful method of travel and they capture that awfulness well.
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No offence intended... but perhaps this is not the thread for you. There's no where left to go after that statement.
 
droj said:
But - as photographers, we can add or reduce emphasis by certain means such as selective focus ... we're not quite as powerless as he seems to say.
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Or processing...

Susan Sontag, on photography, said: a photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image) an interpretation of the real, it is also a trace, something stencilled of the real, like a foot print or death mask.

The photo is thought to steal a little bit of your soul, can show the truth, that belief that the camera cannot lie. With a painting you see the touch of the artist, with a photo you see the subject exposed, touched. Yes the way the photo is taken affects this, but this is the difference, the distance between the subject and those creating the image.
 
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dinners said:
Not sure about 'Photographic Art' but these photographs were taken on a recent trip to the Western Isles.

Nothing deep and meaningful - I just wanted something that represented the feel for the place rather than a specific location.

Beinn dubh by dinners85

Horgobost by dinners85

Manish by dinners85
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I think these three do have artistic merit. Particularly 2 & 3 which are very nice. To me they do raise a a couple of questions where, when and why ? which is the point of art to provoke thought and comment.
 
Byker28i said:
Gursky influenced?
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Quite possibly, but there have been similar oil and watercolour paintings of a similar ilk long before he was around. Gursky may even have been influenced by them.

We are all influenced by images conscientiously or sub-conscientiously and also contextual bias ( that's an interesting subject in its own right)
 
Blank_Canvas said:
... which is the point of art to provoke thought and comment.
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No. No way. That's a side issue. The central point of art is to communicate, by any desperate means. Thought and comment are intellectualisations and just one restricted avenue of appraisal (and all that's possible with certain forms of art!). Gut feeling and intuition can precede, bypass and transcend that. When it's deep, its direct, and doesn't need discussion.

Van Gogh's paintings don't need to be discussed to give them meaning - they hit you immediately just below the navel. Etc.
 
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As discussed earlier in this thread, art is subjective and always stirs up interesting debates. Personally I think photography itself is generally art. Joe Bloggs with no interest in photography but takes photo's with his mobile all the time not so much but I wouldn't like to say at which point it does become art, some would say it isn't at all and others would say anything and everything photographed is art. If you take this image that I produced a year or so ago of my eye, it is originally a photograph but has been heavily manipulated to reach the final look. When I took the original photograph I had this final image in mind so you can say it was conceptual. Some will like it and some won't and say it's no longer a photograph but for me that's not the point, it's what i set out to achieve.
 
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friedeggbanjo said:
Personally I think photography itself is generally art
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It's a medium which can be used to create art. It isn't automatically art just because it's photography.

Painting, sculpture, etc. are also just mediums which can be used to create art. They all have other, more utilitarian uses too.

droj said:
The central point of art is to communicate
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When did people decide that art had to be meaningful and communicate a message or provoke thought? What's wrong with it just being decorative?


Steve.
 
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First, a prerequisite for the production of art is artistic intent. It can't be art if that's lacking. After that, if it's going to work it needs some sort of competence. This is an overview. Then you can distinguish different types of art. Yes, art-like results can be produced accidentally ...

In photography, the pursuance of techniques to make a photograph does not in itself produce art, and certain photos are just a showing off of technique. They may be competent but they are illustration, not art. Others are just the pursuit of the pretty, or what-have-you.
 
Steve Smith said:
When did people decide that art had to be meaningful and communicate a message or provoke thought? What's wrong with it just being decorative?


Steve.
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Nothing.


It's not art though. A beautiful valley in the first throws of a glorious autumn sunrise is decorative, but IT is not art. It just IS: Accidental arrangement of atoms in a universe ruled by chaos and chance.... nothing more. The ART comes from our interpretation of it.. what it MEANS to us, and this is further determined by what we know, feel and think, which is in turn determined by how we were brought up, educated, our life experiences, and what we have been taught is beautiful and what is not. This required THOUGHT and OPINION, and a desire to COMMUNICATE these thoughts and emotions... the result of THAT process could be art, yes... but not "Oh look.. shiny thing... CLICK". That's not art, as it was reactionary and uninvolving, both for the author and the viewer.

There's nothing wrong with images as decoration, but they are decoration. I'm sure some images USED as decoration are art, and vice versa, but the two are not linked, except co-incidentally.
 
friedeggbanjo said:
As discussed earlier in this thread, art is subjective and always stirs up interesting debates. Personally I think photography itself is generally art. Joe Bloggs with no interest in photography but takes photo's with his mobile all the time not so much but I wouldn't like to say at which point it does become art, some would say it isn't at all and others would say anything and everything photographed is art. If you take this image that I produced a year or so ago of my eye, it is originally a photograph but has been heavily manipulated to reach the final look. When I took the original photograph I had this final image in mind so you can say it was conceptual. Some will like it and some won't and say it's no longer a photograph but for me that's not the point, it's what i set out to achieve.
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No offence, but Im not sure this thread is about the use of extensive PP/editing an original photograph?? otherwise, just about anyone could take any old image, and manipulate it into some form of "art" by using Photoshop etc.
Maybe people should also include their PP/editing of their images, that they have posted in this thread?
 
friedeggbanjo said:
If you take this image that I produced a year or so ago of my eye, it is originally a photograph but has been heavily manipulated to reach the final look. When I took the original photograph I had this final image in mind so you can say it was conceptual. Some will like it and some won't and say it's no longer a photograph but for me that's not the point, it's what i set out to achieve.
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Which was what? What was in your mind when you set out to shoot an image of your eye, and what has running it through Fractalius done for the image?

Blank_Canvas said:
I tried a little abstract photography a couple of years ago but is it Art ?

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I don;t know... tell us about the image.
 
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Steve Smith said:
So by your definition, decorative art doesn't exist.


Steve.
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No.. there is art that is used as decoration, and there is decoration. "decorative art" doesn't exist, no. If you choose to use art as decoration that's up to you, but it doesn't make it an art genre. No one creates art intended to "decorate" an environment... I don't care how many dictionary definitions you're now going to fire at me.. they're all wrong. If anyone does create things with a sole purpose of "decoration" then it's p[probably pretty compromised art.

Don't use the Sistine Chapel ceiling as an example, and don't cite other historical examples of friezes and tapestries please... they were commissioned to serve a purpose, and only sheer mastery of craft make some stand the test of time,,, that and historical importance.

You can pay an artist to make art for a space, but that's different again. The artist works in their way, to create something bespoke that has relevance for that space.. it's still art though.. not "decorative art". Buying art and hanging it on a wall doesn't add any value to it as art just because you bought it and hung it.

If an artist is commissioned to create art for a space, they're not making "decorative" art... they're creating art. Someone paying you to put it in a space doesn't change what it is.

Decorative art implies that it's created with the sole purpose of "decorating" a space.... or being created for aesthetic reasons only.. that in my mind = pretty pictures.
 
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Those are decorative items, such as alter pieces, plates.. it's not art. This is art as in "art and crafts".... as in "craft fair - Tuesday 6pm in the village hall". Just because many such objects are to be found in the British Museum, worth millions of pounds due to their materials and historical importance... doesn't make them art. They may be beautiful things, but that's not what makes art either.
 
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Pookeyhead said:
Which was what? What was in your mind when you set out to shoot an image of your eye, and what has running it through Fractalius done for the image?



I don;t know... tell us about the image.
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I have had this image in my head for some time. I'm not sure what to say other than it took me a while to find the right location.

I don't think an explanation is always important - a picture paints a thousand words and all that. I just think it works, well it does for me anyway. It's very pleasing to turn a concept into reality.

Some people will like it, some people will hate it, some people will treat it with casual indifference but that's the very nature of the subjectiveness of *art / photography (*delete as appropriate)
 
Pookeyhead said:
Which was what? What was in your mind when you set out to shoot an image of your eye, and what has running it through Fractalius done for the image?



I don;t know... tell us about the image.
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The final result is what I set out to achieve when I took the photo. Yes the fractalius filter has been used but it wasn't simply just that. The manipulation has completely transformed it into something interesting. You may not like it, that's your choice.
 
friedeggbanjo said:
The final result is what I set out to achieve when I took the photo. Yes the fractalius filter has been used but it wasn't simply just that. The manipulation has completely transformed it into something interesting. You may not like it, that's your choice.
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I never said whether I did, or didn't. Just curious as to why people are posting images they refer to as art in this thread, and have nothing to say about them.
 
Pookeyhead said:
I never said whether I did, or didn't. Just curious as to why people are posting images they refer to as art in this thread, and have nothing to say about them.
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I thought the whole point is that you make your own mind up and not be influenced…….. are you say that every image posted or every piece of art in a gallery should have a résumé by the author saying why, what and where.

This "art" stuff is getting very confusing - back to the birds this week!!!
 
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BillN_33 said:
I thought the whole point is that you make your own mind up and not be influenced…….. are you say that every image posted or every piece of art in a gallery should have a résumé by the author saying why, what and where.
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You can still make your own mind up regardless of whether there is any supporting material. Sometimes though, it's important to give the viewer context.. they'll still make their own mind up regardless. Adding a statement doesn't legitimise anything is that statement is a load of b****x. If it gives context to an otherwise pretty esoteric image, then that's fine. The viewer still decides if it's valid.
 
Pookeyhead said:
You can still make your own mind up regardless of whether there is any supporting material. Sometimes though, it's important to give the viewer context.. they'll still make their own mind up regardless. Adding a statement doesn't legitimise anything is that statement is a load of b****x. If it gives context to an otherwise pretty esoteric image, then that's fine. The viewer still decides if it's valid.
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I think that I was "told" a couple of years ago never to even include a title as that influences the viewer

as I said "back to birds"
 
BillN_33 said:
I think that I was "told" a couple of years ago never to even include a title as that influences the viewer
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I never said a title.

You can't take any old blurry crap and say "Well.. it's about teh human condition innit" and fool anyone. Adding a title is sometimes appropriate, sometimes not. Titles for individual images is a bit lame, but naming an entire project isn't a problem. If it was why else give a book a title, or a film?

BillN_33 said:
as I said "back to birds"
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(shrug).... up to you.
 
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