Do you classify Photography as a true form or Art?

[Bear Dale]

Do you see Photography as a form of art or more along the lines of craft or something else for you?

[Steve Axford]

I don't really see it in those terms. Photography is a tool, no more, no less. The person who creates the image can use it for pure art or for recording what is, the same as any communications medium. For example, the written word is usually used to convey meaning. We write to inform, but some may raise it to an art form, for example Shakespeare or Byron. That's not to say the writing is a true form of art. I haven't seen much art in the average football post match summary. Some use photography as a visual expression which is intended as art - often it isn't, but sometimes it is. Others use photography as a means of recording what is - again this is often not art, but sometimes it is.

In summary - it's the person who is the artist, not the tool.

[LOK51]

Definitely not a true form. With all those stunning long exposure images around. It brings people to a vision not available to naked eyes. I consider photography an art.

[WhoDo]

+1 for "Depends on whose doing it and what they've done"! For example, Instagram stuff is mostly rubbish with filters BUT some people can produce what I would call Art (big A) with the Instagram style.

[Kym]

Photography is an art 100%, although not all photography is art - if that makes sense.
Not all drawings or paintings are art either.

It is a way of expressing yourself creatively!

See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesi...aphy-is-it-art

[zollo]

i do commercial advertising photography for a crust and wouldn't consider the final results as art, although there is an art to running the business side of it

some of my landscapes however, i deliberately try to create something left of centre, a little bit (or lot) abstract, to turn it from the often extensively color corrected, painstakingly perfected commercial photography, to something that blurs the line between digital art and photography. i consider this art

conversely every now and then, i chance upon something so colourful or grand, or just straight up unbelieveable, that i hardly do anything, and people still don't believe i haven't extensively processed the shot i consider this art

sometimes i come across a photojournalist style of photographer, who has spent years documenting something with a camera, and the results are astounding. i consider that art, too

overall, i consider some photography genuine art, but not all.

[AVALANCHE]

I see it as a form of Art and consider a photographer an artist instead.

Between painting/drawing and photography...there are many similarities:

If painting is about the art of inclusion, then Photography is the art of exclusion.

Painting is about seeing light and controlling it for a desired effect. Photography is the same.

Design elements of composition, colour, texture, line are no different between painting/drawing and photography.

Photography, like painting is a very deliberate thing. It doesn't just happen. There is a decision made by the artist to create the image to either convey a message/document or evoke a mood...

So...yes, I would say it is Art without doubt.

[ameerat42]

Yes and no. Neither one nor the other. A bob each way. (With an emu wandering about aimlessly.)
I think there should be some more options.
Am.

[arthurking83]

I voted definitely.

But FWIW: I don't view painting as an art.
I also don't consider drawing to be an art neither!

On a few occasions I've been conscripted to paint, but the fumes of paint make me ill and the job was an entire house interior after renovation. (I love renovating tho!)
On the few occasions I've produced drawings, most observers have described my attempt as "nothing like the route you drew to get me there"

Of course there is level or artistry in just about every facet of life .. as already said, it depends on the intended purpose of the product.

'painting'(a painting) is art, but is 'painting'(a house) also art?

In 99% of instances I see photography as art. I'm usually impressed by the artistic nature of it irrespective of the genre of photography(birds/science/landscape) .. when elements in the image are combined properly and it has an element of artistic merit, I'm usually impressed.
If it's a generic image cataloging a subject, I may simply think it's a good rendition of such, but may not be as impressed as I was with the more artistic image.

[ricktas]

I agree with Kym ^^.

Some is, some isn't. Same could be said of painting with oils. I could paint a scene on canvas, or I could paint a house, both using oil based paints. Only one of them is Art.

Not that I paint with oil paints, I am a watercolour artist. If I painted my house with watercolours, then as soon as it rained..it might then look like Art

[Cargo]

I agree with all the statements made here ......
So its really what you think, your interpretation or whatever floats your boat.
The hand that wields the tool is ultimately what creates the art
Cargo

[Bear Dale]

I was one of the people who voted No, I don't view Photography as a true form of Art I don't know who the other heathen is!

I must have a very large ungreased stick up my backside, as I don't think it's ever coming out

I see photography as a technology.

If you put me in a solitary cell and locked the door, gave me an iPad and said that I don't get out before I finished Angry Birds from whoa to go.......I'd get out eventually.
If you put me in a solitary cell and locked the door, gave me a manual to read and a D800 (I shoot Canon) eventually I'd shoot something OK and get out of solitary (even if I'd never seen a camera before in my life) make it harder, throw in a flash.....I'd still eventually get out.
If you put me in a solitary cell and locked the door, gave me a mallet, some chisels a hunk of marble a photo of David and told me to duplicate it....forget it....just keep sliding my food under my solitary confinement door till the day I die cause I ain't ever getting out.
If you put me in a solitary cell and locked the door, gave me a canvas, some oil paints, some brushes a photo of the Mona Lisa and told me to duplicate it...same as David....keep sliding my food under my door...I ain't getting out!

I've known artists in my life, and they did call themselves artists and never did I think they were being pretentious. I've never heard a photographer in person describe their occupation to me in the words "I am an artist" if I did, I would immediately think to myself what a pretentious ####.

When I think of a photographer compared to an artist. The saying "Even a blind squirrel gets the occasional acorn" comes immediately to mind. A photographer has the luxury of taking an enormous amount of photographs that no one ever sees except the delete bin on the photographers computer, only the one that they think 'nailed it' ever gets presented to an audience.

We can get a little lofty sometimes about this technology. It's very unlike a barrister or a surgeon that has to get it right the first time as they only get one shot at it. If a wedding photographer was only allowed two rolls of film to shoot a wedding....we'd see a massive drop off in the amount of wedding photographers looking for work. The camera is a light proof mini-computer, we didn't make the camera, we didn't make the lenses that go on the front, we didn't design, engineer and make the computer nor the software that we use to further digitally manipulate the image further....yes we do get a little lofty at times.

But hey....don't start heating up the tar and emptying out the feather pillows to hastily....it's just my view

[Mat]

From Wikipedia 'Photography (derived from the Greek phot- for "light" and -graphos for "drawing") is the art, science, and practice of creating durable images by recording light'

Drawing is an art so why wouldnt drawing with light?
I see photography as an art sure there are technical aspects to consider but there is the human element, the creator's ideas, creativity, expression etc. The true art comes from within the creator in any medium. Is a painted canvas art if it is just painted white? I have seen this in a gallery and I there were no viewers just as a snap shot would unlikely have viewers.
Not every one who picks up a camera is a true photographer (artist) just as not every one who picks up a paint brush is a true painter (artist).

From Wikipedia 'An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art'

[Bear Dale]

Drawing is an art so why wouldnt drawing with light?

You can see it as art if you want to, as I can not see it as art if I so choose. For me it's pretentious and actually demeaning to what I see as true art. I studied art for 6 years at a Sydney GPS school and have a great appreciation for art that has been with me all my life. I would have dearly loved to have been an artist. Sadly for me if I had been an apt description would have been "What's the difference between a pizza and Jim the artist"? and the answer would have been that "A pizza can feed a family of four".

I would never value an X ray as art, yet some people do. And like I've never heard a photographer label themselves publicly an artist as their occupation, never have I heard an x ray technician label themselves as an artist.

In regards to your quote above, I see a massive difference in the ability of the great artists who have given a piece of themselves in their works of their drawings to someone merely pushing a button and capturing something in 1/200th of a second.

Again 'I' see one as art and one as the use of a technology.

Remember this is just my views......

[William]

I voted "Yes" it s an Art , I've had some local Artists (Painting) Ask if I could supply an Image so they could paint it in Oils

[WhoDo]

I was one of the people who voted No, I don't view Photography as a true form of Art I don't know who the other heathen is!

I must have a very large ungreased stick up my backside, as I don't think it's ever coming out

I see photography as a technology.

Ok, well in the spirit of your examples ... if you locked me in a cell, gave me a canvas and an unlimited supply of paint I reckon I could "paint" sumfin better than Blue Poles but it still wouldn't make me an ARTIST ... except of the kind prefixed with a gender of Bovine!

There is no ART in activating a camera shutter, but equally that is NOT all it takes to be a Photographer ... or a Photographic Artist, if you will. It also takes a good eye for subject choice, framing, colour, light & shade, texture, etc. Oh, wait! Those are the same things REAL artists have to consider too!

[Bear Dale]

I think I'd even struggle with putting out a Blue Poles pop out - Yep I suck My stick men curl over and die in embarrassment.

Yet I have mastered the 'art' of cooking lamb on wood fired BBQ (now don't go tellin' me there's any art what-so-ever in using a gas BBQ ) and I can cook a mean snag as well.......ah the joys of being a BBQ artist !

[zollo]

For me it's pretentious and actually demeaning to what I see as true art.

I've seen canvas and for that matter metal/paper/fibreglass/plastic objects all twisted into what the creator of said object calls art. Are you saying "using" objects is not art? A camera can be just an object one also uses to create art.

I've heard plenty of photographers call themselves and/or others fine art photographers.

Oh and is there an artist that isn't pretentious or demeaning to my intelligence?? :-D

[ricktas]

I wonder what would the answer be to this if digital did not exist.

Go back 30 years..we are all out there taking photos, with our film cameras. Going home to our dark rooms, and creating great prints. Would we look at photography differently then? Would we be more inclined to call it Art?

I thought about this from the point of view that most 'Art' is created over a period of time. Paintings can take days, weeks, months and even years when you consider things like the Sistene Chapel. Is the instant gratification of the modern DSLR with its pre-programmed modes etc, where by a split second can create the result, part of the reason we would even be questioning photography as an Art. It is an instant result, in a society that likes fast food, fast cars, etc. And we see Art as something that is made over time, slowly, a labor of love. Something that the click now photo doesn't need.

[Steve Axford]

Painting before Leonardo et al was considered as a craft, not an art like a master mason. The great painters had to fight to be raised to the artist status. Photography now is considered as a craft because so many use it as such. Painting used to be the only way to record something, so people used it for just that. Get a painter to paint a scene or a portrait, just like we take a photo now days. Where's the art in that? I don't think photography has ever been considered as an art. But I have my own views on that which I stated before.