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Thread: What is '"Art Photography"

  1. #1
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    What is '"Art Photography"

    Following the "What isn't art" thread. I wonder what is "art photography" or "Fine Art Photography"?

    Intent, perspective, desire. These are not enough for me to describe art. To describe something as art means I have placed a value judgement on it. No one is truely objective or impersonal.

    All writing is not literature. Even all writing intended as literature is not necessarily literature. The intent to create art by itself is not enough in and of itself.

    Literature is often defined as "creative writing of recognized artistic value".

    This implies value judgement on an individual and societal level.

    The word writing is much like the word photography. It simply implies a specific form of technical effort. We lack a word like literature for photography of "recognised artistic value".
    Perhaps "fine art photography"? I don't know. It is a term often misused.

    Some 35 mm color stock photographers I know, who now own an Epson printer with Ultrachrome inks, are advertising on their website Fine Art Prints. They never did this before the Epson printers became available. It is as if archival inks is what is essential in creating art photography rather than some quality of the image. The images they produce are still mundane but will last 150 boring years.

    You can't talk about art without making value judgements. It is humanly impossible. These values may be personal, misguided, silly, profound, worldly whatever. But we should be honest and try to describe what they are even if they are individual. It isn't easy.

    Let me give you an example. I know for myself when I do an image that for me is art and when I don't. Part of that judgement is color, color for me is never art. That means that my commercial work is never art because it is all color. So that leaves b&w. All of it is done for personal reasons but I believe that only about one in twenty images that I make is art ie an image that I am going to take the time to print and hang on a wall. The stuff that falls short are just photographs.

    Now people who see my work in magazines and museums etc. don't make these same distintions
    that I do for my work. To them it is all my work and all my art. For instance there is a book and exhibit coming up that merge the color commercial work and b&w personal images. I allowed these projects to go forward partly because I was intrigued by their vision of my work. I am now rethinking the "not art" judgement that I made for my commercial work.

    How do you define "art photography" or do you bother?
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  2. #2
    bob carnie's Avatar
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    What is '"Art Photography"

    Kirk

    difficult question but I will take a simple stab at it.

    I have been involved in photography for a long while , I was very active with the camera in the beginning of my career and then there was a period where I have worked on the printing craft to business side.
    About 4 years ago I decided to use the camera actively again and started a series of images that in the end I solarize. I have been very dilegent with this project and have produced a series of approx 60 working prints that I like.
    Thirty years ago I started a project on ballet images and shot quite a few images, I revisited these negatives recently and made a portfolio of approx 20 images that I am happy with.

    I just handed over the solarized portfolio to a close friend that will hopefully represent and produce gallery shows for me.
    I did not hand over the ballet portfolio as it did not represent *my art* to me. It is work that though quite nice does not do any thing for me. It was not well thought out at the time and I feel that looking at the work I was influenced by other photographers , therefore it does not feel like my work.
    The solarizations on the other hand were a by product of years flipping prints in the darkroom and thinking , some experimentation, some technical considerations , and then hundreds of rolls of film and prints to narrow down a body of work. This group of images I can call Art. The ballerinas I would consider to be just copywork.
    I don't know if this helps
    regards
    Bob

  3. #3

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    What is '"Art Photography"

    Hi Kirk

    I think art is it if it really comunicates a message to the public in an outstanding technical perfection!
    Thats my shortest basic definition of art!
    You will get many very different answers.

    Good luck.

  4. #4

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    What is '"Art Photography"

    It is all art. All of it. (there's no value judgement there)

    It's just that there is good art and there is not so good art. (this is where the value judgement comes in)

    --Darin

    www.darinboville.com

  5. #5

    What is '"Art Photography"

    I would tell you, but then someone here will chime in and tell me I just dont "get it"....so I am staying away from this one..

  6. #6
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    What is '"Art Photography"

    "It's just that there is good art and there is not so good art."

    Is all writing literature? Is all photography art?

    Does that mean that there is good art photography and not so good art photography?

    I would argue that there is photography and then there is "art photography". This is a value judgement that I am pleased to make everyday.

    If everything is art then nothing is art.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  7. #7
    Leonard Metcalf's Avatar
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    What is '"Art Photography"



    Len Metcalf

    Leonard Murray Metcalf BA Dip Ed MEd

    Len's gallery lenmetcalf.com

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  8. #8

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    What is '"Art Photography"

    The message of the 20th century art world, starting with Marcel Duchamp's exhibition of a urinal as art, is that the question of what is art is just not a fruitful line of inquiry. Duchamp essentially said that art is whatever the artist says it is. Andy Warhol said that art is whatever the artist can get away with. In the last few dozen years, they have gotten away with quite a lot. It is futile to debate what is or is not art. As Darin suggested, the real issue, the one requiring critical judgement, is whether the art is question is good art or bad art.

  9. #9
    Steve Williams_812's Avatar
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    What is '"Art Photography"

    There is definitely a divide between "fine art photography" and "art". There is a commercial imperative to making prints that will sell at fairs or in galleries selling work that is "beautiful" or "decorative". I use these words guardedly.

    On the other hand, there are artists and photographers working outside that particular commerical imperative (and audience) and are showing in different sorts of galleries, are funded through grants, fellowships, and their own monies, are chosen by curators to be in shows, etc. These photographers---Wall, Mann, Struth, Starn Twins, Gorsky, Goldin, Shore, Friedlander, Frank, etc, they don't show up at fairs.

    Is one better than the other? No. Are they different animals and arenas? Certainly. The same thing happens in painting, sculpture. I guess in curator circles or with critics, fine art is commercial vs. "high art" that you may see at MOMA, the Whitney, or at Pace MaGill.....

    steve
    Steve Williams
    Scooter in the Sticks

  10. #10
    Mark Sawyer's Avatar
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    What is '"Art Photography"

    Kirk wrote (in part): "Some 35 mm color stock photographers I know, who now own an Epson printer with Ultrachrome inks, are advertising on their website Fine Art Prints. They never did this before the Epson printers became available. It is as if archival inks is what is essential in creating art photography rather than some quality of the image."

    Isn't it clear? Epson is marketing a "fine art printer" with "fine art inks" and you can print on "fine art paper," so what do you expect to get out of it?

    As there are quite a few gelatin-silver "fine art" papers out there now, I suggest we all go to our darkrooms and inspect our paper package labels to see if what we've been doing qualifies as "fine art photography" or not.

    Hmmm, here's mine, let's see... "Ilford MGIV Multigrade FB De Luxe." Don't say nuthin' about "fine art." Nope, I'm not an artist. Well, at least it's "De Luxe..."
    "I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."

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