Is photography, Art?

[jim]

Most photographers who try self-consciously to create art produce only kitsch. Yet the dully workaday policemen who took the photos in this book: http://www.amazon.com/City-Shadows-S.../dp/1876991208 produced images that look a lot like art to me.

What the heck is art anyway?

[WhoDo]

What the heck is art anyway?

...and that's the whole point, jim. "Art" is something aesthetically pleasing to the viewer. What I consider Art you may not and vice versa. Is Photography "Art"? No, but some photographic artists can use it as a medium to create "Art". Is painting "Art"? No, but some artists can use painting to produce art (others just cover up rust on old bridges, etc.). Same goes for sculpture, too. Some chisellers create "Art" and others tombstones. The presence of the conscious artistic effort does NOT guarantee an artistic, i.e. aesthetically pleasing, outcome any more than it's absence does the opposite. Frankly, I prefer to adhere to the school that says artists create "Art" for themselves and if anyone else sees the "Art" in their creation that's a bonus. No artist would ever countenance a creation that was not aesthetically pleasing to their own eye. How many painters have painted over unsatisfying canvasses and started again? Or broken an unsatisfying sculptural effort? Perhaps we'll never know but thank goodness they do (start again).

[Hamster]

Lik's record has already been beaten

http://petapixel.com/2014/12/13/arti...aph-ever-sold/

[Steve Axford]

I'm sure Peter Lik's photo is very good, but if you or I took that photo, how much do you think we would get for it? It's the mystique that the photographer/artist creates around themselves that sells the work. They then have to have a very good photo, but no more than very good.
I would love to sell a photo for that much and I wouldn't really care if it was art or not. I'm sure that deep down Peter doesn't care either.

[bobt]

Of course photography is art ....... not necessarily *my* photography, unless you count it as poor art. However, as to the price paid, that's not necessarily related to the "value" of a photograph as "art", it's just what someone with too much money was (perhaps) prepared to pay at a given point in time. If he tried to re-sell it, maybe no-one would buy it. The prices paid for things do not necessarily reflect their intrinsic value. I've seen some awful photographs in art galleries that have no such value in any sensible objective application of the term, yet they command prices which are simply unwarranted.

Sometimes the value of art simply reflects the reputation of its creator. One an artist achieves a level of fame, then anything they create tends to come with a financial premium, but that doesn't mean that every piece produced by that individual is intrinsically valuable in the absence of that pedigree. View some work of "famous" individuals without knowing who the maker was and you can arrive at an entirely different perception of its worth.

[ricktas]

Well it might be time to sell the much loved jousting sticks and grab a signed Apollo 8 photo. For the serious Coke can collectors I noticed an empty sealed Coke can online for $25000, the old price vs value conundrum, go figure.

I have a set of 4 glass coke bottles, unopened, that I bought in 1972-4 (was young and cannot recall the actual year). They were put out in a small cardboard box with santa images for Christmas at the time. The price is noted on each as $0.05. Maybe I should go look at ebay and see if they are worth anything. At my place they become a talking point with visitors at times. They are on an open shelf in my kitchen. I have also never assumed them to be Art, but considering their display and discussion, perhaps they are ?

[Dug]

One of Jonathan Jones colleges, a photography reporter gives a well considered response.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddes...jonathan-jones

[bcys1961]

I have a set of 4 glass coke bottles, unopened, that I bought in 1972-4 (was young and cannot recall the actual year). They were put out in a small cardboard box with santa images for Christmas at the time. The price is noted on each as $0.05. Maybe I should go look at ebay and see if they are worth anything. At my place they become a talking point with visitors at times. They are on an open shelf in my kitchen. I have also never assumed them to be Art, but considering their display and discussion, perhaps they are ?

This raised a new issue - rarity . These bottles will take on value as there would not be many unopened 1972 coke bottles around and no more can ever be produced. There are collectors out there who want them and are prepared to pay. Supply and demand. ( And I wish I had kept all my old matchbox cars in the box and not played with them as a kid!.) A painting once completed can never be reproduced , particularly after the artist dies.

But a digital photo. Endless copies can be made in numerous formats. What's to stop Lik later selling this photo as a postcard via his stores. ( I assume it may be in the contract of sale?) I think this issue has arisen with some other photo's for which investors have paid high prices only to find the photographer later releasing additional copies.

[SpoonyDan]

I had to force myself to continue reading after he blatantly admitted to taking photos of landscapes with and iPad

In anycase as someone else linked an article by the same clown almost a year earlier talks the complete opposite, so it's safe to deduce based on this and the iPad photography there is some kind of mental issue going on.
*note: My beef with iPad photography is the same person no doubt has an iPhone or whatever other phone yet parades around holding a big fat tablet up in everyones face looking like a t wat (how is that a word auto censored? lol) to achieve no better (likely worse) images.

However the discussion here is valid, personally the price seems absurd to me, but that is the human world, the value/price people put on things and inturn are willing to pay often does not relate to logic.

As for Photography being Art, the question asked earlier, what is Art totally applies. One can be highly creative in both taking a shot and in the post work after, at the same time one can be super lazy and lucky and point and shoot and also capture something people see as amazing. Anyone living in Melbourne would question what Art is in some areas, ie, apparently a fake Hotel on the side of the motorway is "Art", personally it at first offered confusion as to why there was no road/driveway/whatever haha, and then the realization it was fake, and then, 'how stupid is that'! haha.

Art perhaps to some degree needs to be creative, this can be both in thought and in the physical sense, virtual/digital and real. One that argues only the 'physical' creation is art and the other technology is somewhat hypocritical. Most physical art involves the use of technology, be it paints, brushes etc that are man made and at some point were as 'high tech' as a computer is today. In effect they can all be simply just classed as tools?

As for the value of Art, well that's just random and seems to have more to do with the 'Image' of 'value' of the creator more than the quality of the creation. Art as mentioned holds value in the viewer, but I'm sure most can agree that crazy valued art is often over hyped and valued around the all important and perceived 'Image' that is modern society? This goes for most art I'd say, be it Photography as mentioned, physical type art such as paintings and sculptures, and other such creative medias including music.

[ameerat42]

If photography is not in some way an art, then why do we have so many CC forums?

To prove that photography is, in part at least, art, consider the following breakdown of the word:

PHOTOGRAPHY

Or TRA in > direction, but on reflection it is ART.

(This should have been a poll.)

[WhoDo]

To prove that photography is, in part at least, art, consider the following breakdown of the word:

PHOTOGRAPHY

Or TRA in > direction, but on reflection it is ART.

(This should have been a poll.)

Am, you are truly one of a kind! I guess that makes you a "work of art"?

[arthurking83]

Am, you are truly one of a kind! I guess that makes you a "work of art"?

Or a 'rat'

scrabble anyone?

[ameerat42]

Well, elephants have been coaxed to paint. Haven't you herd of Cez-jumbo?
Crows can use tools. - Haven't you ever had one come up and ask to borrow something?
Rats, though often denigrated by us, are fairly intelligent and are used in studies that have been
extrapolated to humans. Haven't you heard of the "unwashed masses"?

[Steve Axford]

Yep, and slime mould can design efficient networks much better than we can.

[Mark L]

Am, you are truly one of a kind! I guess that makes you a "work of art"?

I'd be inclined to what AK said.
I have a photo of the back of am's head. Looks more like rat than art.

[ricktas]

The New York Times has an article on Mr Lik and his formula for photography. Very interesting read: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/bu...oney.html?_r=0

[Cris]

Interesting read, one can't help but think that he plays to his audience and has a very good marketing team behind him.

[Tannin]

Is photography art? Well, is writing art? Are we talking about Shakespeare here? Or a shopping list?

[Bonsai Jason]

I think photography can be a lot of things, art included. This same argument comes up in bonsai too, whether it should be classed as art or not.

I think that in the end, if you are using your creative skills to obtain whatever it is your doing, be it a photograph or bonsai, then I would consider it art. If i just stuck a tree in a pot I wouldn't consider that art, same as if I took a selfie

[Kym]

Clearly the author of the article has no idea what goes into producing a great image - doofus!