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When is a photograph fine art?
Enough talk about dating, let's talk about the art of photography. Periodically, art museums will have exhibits of photography. Being a painter, I don't fully understand what makes a photo fine art. I spend weeks doing a painting but a photo takes mere moments to create. Is a fine art photo about the photographer..the subject, the epuipment? Does it have to exist as a print..is there a special process? Can fine art only exist in the digital..as in a photo never printed? Must it be contained within a body of work..or can it stand on it's own? Or is there some mysterious combination of the aforementioned..like when the work takes on a life of it's own... Feb 20 06 03:26 pm Link Kirk McCann Studio wrote: I disagree, and I'm not even a photographer. The "capture" takes moments, but the "creation" is altogether different. And even that is speculative. You may end up taking 300+ pictures to capture a single perfect shot. Some photogs wait weeks for perfect weather conditions or that perfect sunset. MUA's take hours to create that perfect look. Feb 20 06 03:34 pm Link Yes, you're right. Sometimes it takes a whole days work to get "the" photo. Photos are stepping stones to paintings for me, so I don't always see them as finished works. Now that I think of it, I've spent several days preparing for a shoot. I haven't worked with MUAs much, I suppose they are painters too, in thier own right. Feb 20 06 03:47 pm Link Feb 20 06 03:59 pm Link *dressed as 50's cigaret girl, with tray in tow* Cigars?? Cigarettes?? Martinis??? Expresso??? Feb 20 06 04:03 pm Link Jayne Jones wrote: -lol- Feb 20 06 04:13 pm Link Don't paintings in galleries generally sell for more than photographic prints? (Assuming the artists are of comparable statures?) Feb 20 06 04:17 pm Link everything can be a fine art photograph. from cliche sunsets to simple portraits to crazy abstractions. just like painting. all it takes is for someone to FEEL something about the photograph. and yes, individual photographs sell for a lot less than paintings of artist of equal prominence. but photographers sell many copies of the same photograph. it ends up equal in the end, i think. Feb 20 06 04:23 pm Link I went to a waterfall, in the Smokies, for over ten years, before the lighting and conditions were right for a great image. In answer to the question about fine art. It becomes fine art when a well known fine art critic, says it is fine art. The painter's, and photographer's have very little control over this. In the eighteen hundreds a lot of writers and artists, using another name, often wrote words of praise on their own works, and mailed these letters in to newspapers and other publications in hopes that the letters would be printed. I think that getting your work published as often as possible, is the key to attracting the better critics. Feb 20 06 04:28 pm Link What happened to beatniks? It used to be cool to be unshaven, unemployed, unclean and poorly dressed, as long as you could wax poetic, or looked good with a guitar. Well, if I had a martini for every hour I spent in photoshop I 'd be happily passed out. As for the post-production end of photography, yes, there is a lot of room for creativity there. The finessing of a photograph, however done, is certainly an artistic process. Feb 20 06 04:29 pm Link Kirk McCann Studio wrote: The beatniks of 1968, and 69 went back to school and became teachers and lawyers. Some still get togather several times each year. They are now called rainbow brothers and sisters, and most are grandparents. I once traveled around the country in an old converted school bus for eleven years. Printed lots of pictures in that old bus. Later this year I am moving back into a larger 40 ft converted tour bus for more traveling. Feb 20 06 04:36 pm Link I don't consider any art done on spec for a client to be fine art, it would just be art. Fine art has nothing to do with quality (based upon some of the crap I see in many of the local galleries). I may be out of touch, but I don't believe that out of focus poorly printed black and white photographs are art (even if they do have a huge price tag on them). Nor do I like seeing horizontal stripes painted upon canvas being called birds (because the colors of the stripe represent the percentage of the color found in that particular species, info only obtained by reading the artists statement). Now that my bias is out, here's my take on fine art photography. There is always an investment in time prior to taking the picture choosing location, lighting, model, and the like. I've never had the pleasure of getting a shot from camera to paper that didn't need a bit of work in the darkroom (digital or chemical doesn't matter). What differentiates the fine art photographer is he has the initial vision and is his own final client for the shot. My work makes me happy and if it pleases others, that's good. Pleasing others, is not a consideration when I press the shutter. Commercial and wedding photographers are not creating works of art strictly for their own pleasure, if their clients don't like what they see, those photographers will soon be out of work. If they are shooting advertisements, the layout of the shot itself may be dictated to them. However, if the commercial or wedding photographer chooses his own vision and creates a photograph strictly for themself, they are shooting in a fine art mode. Feb 20 06 04:49 pm Link If it's in black-and-white it's fine art (he says, tongue planted firmly in cheek)... Feb 20 06 04:54 pm Link Critics...hopefully fine art can exist independent of what they say, which can be influenced by so many other factors. We all want educated praise, and kudos from our peers. Visionary artists often get panned by critics. Going to one spot to work over a long time...there is an elegance in that. Working with one subject over and over....getting inside it, spending so much time with it you eventually find it's core, it spirituality. I had a sister-in-law who lived in a converted school bus. A mobile dark room is a cool concept. In this age that can include a laptop, wireless internet, you name it. As far as the reasons for doing art, I would agree that fine art is done first for beauty's sake, secondly for money. No, being in a gallery doesn't make it art..to be sure. If you make it into a museum though... Feb 20 06 05:05 pm Link Habenero Photography wrote: i can't disagree with you any more. what about robert frank's work? The Americans has notoriously bad exposure and printing. they're grainy, sometimes out of focus, and not printed superbly. but that book might be the most important photographic work of the century. Feb 20 06 05:10 pm Link Oddly enough in the state of california from what I understand, a photograph with the price tag of $125 or more is considered fine art category photography. But to me fine art photographs are photographs which best showcase what photography is about, subject matter, light, shadow, color(or b&w) and texture.In my opinion the reason black and white is more easily considered fine art is because once you take color away it is even more difficult to showcase shadow, light and subject matter at its best without the distraction of color. Feb 20 06 05:12 pm Link Brian Diaz wrote: Some photographs are catching up in price, actually. I have seen auctions where a single photograph sells for near a million bucks. One photographers portfolio of about 15 shots went for nearly half a million if I am not mistaken about a year ago. Feb 20 06 05:14 pm Link a steichen photograph sold for almost $3 million: http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/a … 1002033354 there are some photos that sell for like $100K. eggleston, for example. Feb 20 06 05:19 pm Link When someone pays you a large sum of money for it so they can hang it in their living room. Everyone has a different interpretation of art...and crap. Feb 20 06 05:22 pm Link You should know if u consider yourself a "fiqurative artist". See what you wrote as a TAG in my port a week ago and answer why you now dont know what fine art photo is now ... E L Feb 20 06 05:32 pm Link Since art is the opposite of porn, I can't define it, either - but I know it when I see it. I'd go a step farther and observe that anyone who asks whether his photography is art or not - is probably not an artist. Anyone photographic artist worth his/her salt probably wouldn't even pause to wonder. mjr. Feb 20 06 05:44 pm Link Marcus J. Ranum wrote: Opposite of porn? Are you sure? I bet that is open to interpretation as well. Feb 20 06 05:51 pm Link porn is art. seriously. Feb 20 06 05:52 pm Link Brian Diaz wrote: Yes, the law of supply and demand keeps photographic art prices down (as it should) for the simple reason that it's easier to make 20 prints from a negative than it is to pour 20 bronzes out of molten metal, or whatever. And the art-buying public know that clicking "Print" in photoshop is even easier still. The ease with which digital media can fill the demand guarantees the prices of digital prints will stay low. Indeed, compare the prices fetched by a platinum print versus a silver print versus a digital print (even if you call it "giclee"!) and you'll see the market dynamics in effect. Feb 20 06 05:53 pm Link emiliano granado wrote: I was trying to be silly... And you see what happens? Feb 20 06 05:53 pm Link Wonderful question, and one with which I personally struggle. I cannot paint or draw to save my life, so this is the only medium I have to attempt to express myself. Sometimes I will work a photo for several weeks, fine tuning the image, and, even then, I am rarely satisfied. Equally, I might prepare an image in my mind for a very long time before the nozzles of my inkjet printer spray onto the medium. There is a very soft boundary between art and nonspecific beauty. Ricardo Feb 20 06 05:54 pm Link E L Fanucchi wrote: I wrote "nice color" which doesn't presuppose I know what fine art photography is. Feb 20 06 06:03 pm Link Vegas Alien wrote: If it's got naked b(0)(o)bies and it's black-and-white it is like totally fine art. That's what Bill Syvester says and he's a really good photographer so it must be TRUE! Feb 20 06 06:14 pm Link As a painter, you take a scene (or your imagination) and make it work for you. If you don't have a perfect line here, you change it with your brush. You take an ordinary scene, real or imaginary, and change it into art. With photography you must first find a scene that is art, or you create a scene that you arrange into art and then in a fraction of a second, you freeze that scene for all tme. And if you do everything right and you are lucky, then you have captured art. The difference is that as a painter you create an artistic picture of a scene. As a photographer, you must create the art and then capture a moment of it on some sort of recording medium. Which is the true artist, the person who creates the image purely out of his imagination, or the person who creates the artistic reality and then preserves a moment of it? I say both. Feb 20 06 06:15 pm Link What's the difference between pornography and fine art? The light. I see the point that is being made here. Honestly, there is a lot of crap out there (and on this site) that is called art â and I don't think it's fine. For the most part, I see a lot of photographers whose only vision is to talk the model out of her g-string so that she can be photographed -- and for some this gives them some sort of validation (hehe, I shot me a nekkid girl, now I'm a photographer). Why do you guys take the girl into the middle of nowhere and roll her in the dirt? I don't get that. Conversely, there are some photographers who have a vision for their art and they have the ability to pull it all off (along with the g-string). Somebody much wiser than me once said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." To those of you who have this vision and ability to create beautiful photographs, my hat is off to you. I hope that I can learn from your pictures. I think the photographer who can create beauty from nothing is as much of an artist as the painter who sits down with a blank canvas and creates a masterpiece. Just as there are painters whose only skill is to smear paint on a board, there are similar photographers who send this art form into a downward spiral. When it comes to photography, it's pretty much all been done before. That doesn't mean we should all roll over, though. The photographic artist is one who takes his (or her vision) and works to set a new standard while offering their point of view. The GWC is one who doesn't know that shooting ANYTHING at noon is bad. He also is the one who takes his model into the middle of nowhere and photographs her with dirt on her breasts or butt because he saw it in a magazine once. He is only mimicing. Compounding this issue is the fact that if I took a pretty girl and rolled her in the dirt then photographed her outside at noon, there would be someone telling me how nice of a picture that was. Feb 20 06 06:15 pm Link Kirk McCann Studio wrote: I find it really surprising that a fellow artist would raise this narrow minded question. Isn't this sort of like the 'art 101' question of what is art? Art is about the image; nothing less, nothing more. You don't consider a photograph to be art, that's fine, it's your view. Well what about the "artist", the painter who had a TV show several years ago who completed a couple of finished paintings withing the 30 minutes of his show? What about the "artist" who simply decorates found objects? What about the painter who believes painting with acrylics is not real 'art', it has to be done with oils to count. Feb 20 06 06:17 pm Link Lens N Light wrote: I agree with you because I'd say your distinction isn't very good. What about photographers that photograph still-life? Guys like Eberhard Grames(*) create the scene, create the lighting, photograph it, and print from the photograph. Is that more art than if all they did was capture an existing scene? Or what about the photographic artists who place flowers on a scanner? It is also a photographic process, right? Feb 20 06 06:23 pm Link I want to know. Miguel Feb 20 06 06:29 pm Link I want to know. Miguel Feb 20 06 06:30 pm Link I was going to say "I know it when I see it too"...lol. I am a painter and I took photography classes. I considered both very flexible methods in which to create art. Neither method was quick or easy...especially in my photo class days of spending time in the darkroom developing my own film. But both methods allowed me to create. One thing I learned from talking about art, is there will never be complete agreement on what constitutes art. Of course, I have an opinion like everyone else does...I am biting my tongue...hard...haha:-P Feb 20 06 06:31 pm Link I want to know. Miguel Feb 20 06 06:31 pm Link I think it is very HEAVY shadows weak focus and a large price tag!! It seems the difference is shadows . It doesn't seem dirty to people viewing it. There are exceptions like famous artists can avoid shadows and be hearalded as foward thinkers unknowns??They are just grimy pervs. Feb 20 06 06:33 pm Link I find it really surprising that a fellow artist would raise this narrow minded question. Isn't this sort of like the 'art 101' question of what is art? Art is about the image; nothing less, nothing more. You don't consider a photograph to be art, that's fine, it's your view. Well what about the "artist", the painter who had a TV show several years ago who completed a couple of finished paintings withing the 30 minutes of his show? What about the "artist" who simply decorates found objects? What about the painter who believes painting with acrylics is not real 'art', it has to be done with oils to count. Huzzah, Doug, for stating so eloquently what was running through my fevered brain. Feb 20 06 06:37 pm Link Doug Lester wrote: Feb 20 06 06:45 pm Link Well, I'm glad I finally pissed someone off. If you read my opening remarks, I said I don't fully understand what makes a photograph fine art. I have a deep respect for photography, and I do consider it to be fine art, in it's highest form. I'm trying to learn a little more about it from all you talented professionals. And by the way, Bob Ross rocks! Feb 20 06 06:48 pm Link |
