35. Photography as an Art Form

Defining Fine Art Photography

How did photography change art? Did it change the purpose of painting?

The development of photography created a debate on the nature and meaning of art. Photography was not originally seen as art, although some early practitioners had been educated as artists and painters. The idea that a machine could produce art independent of man was counter to art’s definition as original, personal expression. 

Instead, photography was viewed as a science, an opinion that still carries weight today. Many scientists continue to use photographs to document the processes and results of their experiments. If a photo was a product of science, then it was the antithesis of art. Art was everything that a photo was not. You can see how this attitude led to the swift demise of Realist painting. 

Impressionism was the perfect response to photography. It could claim superiority for its use of color and dismissal of detailed rendering, even as it borrowed compositional ideas from photography: cropping figures and objects, showing only small bits of larger buildings, etc. Art’s further progression towards abstraction in the 20^th century can be seen as a direct response to photography. I even remember an art professor asking me, “What’s the point of copying a photo, if the camera can do it just as well, and faster?” So, the changing nature, goals, and definitions of modern art can all be seen as a quest to remain relevant as photography began to supplant many of art’s original goals: to document history, to create accurate portraits, to tell the news and illustrate stories, etc.

Objectivity versus Subjectivity, Art versus Journalism

Part of the debate over whether photography is art has to do with the idea of it being honest and unbiased. When a camera takes a photo it makes no judgments as to what matters and what doesn’t. It doesn’t know what it’s looking at, it doesn’t care what it’s looking at. Now, a good photographer does know and care what she's looking at, and does make judgments, but some would say she's still working within a machine that is too confining in what it can do. Whether or not the resulting image looks good has as a certain amount of luck involved, regardless of the the photographer – who is lucky to be in the right place at the right time (she might say it's not luck, and she'd be right, but still, you can't control nature, you can only wait patiently for things to align). That’s what we assume about any photograph we see, because it looks honest, it looks untouched, and it looks so damned accurate, it has to be the truth, right?

Well, not really. Photos have been doctored since the technology began. Photo manipulation has only gotten better and more sophisticated over time, especially with the advent of computers and Photoshop. Every tool in Photoshop is based on a real-world tool originally used in a dark room. But, even before a photo is doctored, it’s still subjective to a degree, because the photographer chooses what to take a picture of, from what angle to look, what to include and exclude, what to focus on and what not to. Photos copy reality, but not all of it, only what the person behind the camera cares about, or is capable of experiencing.

This idea of crafting a photo, of imbuing it with meaning and making it special through the careful application of dark room techniques and manipulation has been the standard argument for labelling a photo a work of art, and demanding high prices, for the last century. Under this definition, a photo is only an artwork if the photographer produces the image herself in a dark room, using the highest level of quality techniques and tricks to get it exactly how she wants, and then giving it her stamp of approval by signing it. So, taking the photo isn’t enough. You can’t just send it off to a lab.

There are those who still question whether a photograph meeting all these standards is art. I talk about it more in my lesson on defining art.