Photography As Art, Pt. 3: Wrap-Up and My Take

As we’ve seen from parts 1 and 2 of this series, photography does indeed have a home within the world of art. There are still people, of course, who will argue that “photography isn’t/can’t be art,” and that photographers “aren’t/can’t be artists” if they do only photography. Today, with the pervasiveness of Instagram and Snapchat, this attitude seems more prevalent; I have had people question why I got a studio art degree when “just anyone can do photography,” and even other artists dismiss my knowledge of art based on the fact that I chose photography over drawing, painting, or sculpture. This is why I believe writing about photography, especially the artistic aspects of it, is so important. I want people to understand that there is more to photography than simply picking up a camera and snapping a shot; photography has, however recent, a rich history, and there are many different types of photography that one can practice. So, what makes one type of photography art, but not another? Well, here is my take on the subject.

It’s complicated.

Okay, maybe that’s not the answer you wanted. But, it is an honest answer that depends a lot on who you are talking to. Many people will argue that commercial photography cannot be art because it is made to be sold (this is a thought surrounding art in general, by the way — fine artists seem to really detest commercial artists for whatever reason). However, it can be argued that there is a lot of artistic principle that goes into commercial photography; as you may recall from Part 1, art is defined as “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” It takes creative skill and imagination to arrange and execute a commercial shoot, and many commercial photographers create photographs that are meant to be beautiful or to evoke emotion from the viewer. Take, for example, fashion photography (which I can’t wait to talk about with you all in a future post); while a lot of fashion photography is meant to advertise pieces from different designers, these works can still be extremely artistic and involve a lot of creativity on the part of the photographer. When we think of photographers such as Cecil Beaton, Lord Snowdon, David Bailey, and Annie Leibovitz, we think of them not only as photographers or fashion photographers, but also as artists because the beautiful compositions they create/created. Photographers of every profession use the visual elements and principles of art, the same as any other artists would; we intentionally frame images based on line, color, composition, you name it, and we still cover much of the same subject matter, such as politics or self-reflection. Do you see the complication yet?

Well, how about this, then?

Most of the art we see in our art history book was either commissioned or otherwise made to be sold. Churches paid artists to decorate their spaces with Biblical scenes; Greek and Roman politicians paid artists to make sculptures and other pieces to celebrate their rule; Andy Warhol, who is famous in the world of art and who features prominently in modern art history texts, was definitely an artist who proliferated the commercial aspect of his work. At the end of the day, artists have to make money too, and even artists who aren’t “commercial” sell their work to make money off of it. This is why I, myself, don’t understand why such a distinction is made with photography; if other artists are allowed to sell their work and still call themselves “artists,” then why can’t photographers do the same? This is a discussion that is at the very core of what Contemporary Art as a movement is about; we have a much broader idea of what is and is not art nowadays, and photography is becoming part of this discussion more and more as new technological advances are being made in the world of both art and photography.

I do not, however, think that everyone who takes a photograph is an artist, nor do I think that every photograph is a work of art.

I do believe that there is a certain amount of artistic thought that has to go into a photograph before it can be considered art (the same as with every other medium — I do not think that just any painting or sculpture is art, either, you know, for the record). Circling back to our previous discussion, while a lot of commercial work does involve a degree of artistic thought and ability, not all commercial photography is art to me. Some commercial work involves a deeply thought-out concept, and that, I do believe, can be considered art. But do I believe that photographs such as senior or family portraits taken in a studio on a generic set are art? Eh, not really, and the reason boils down to the fact that these shoots, while meaningful, are not driven by a concept or meant to evoke emotion beyond making family members happy (which is valuable and nothing to shake your head at, but I think most of us will agree that it isn’t quite art in the proper sense (well, yet, anyway, because, hahaha, old paintings of families have been included in art history texts due to their historical importance, so perhaps this will happen with family photographs in the future… you know, perhaps? I digress). I also find myself among the group of disparaged photographers who find it frustrating when people on Instagram or any parent with a camera calls themselves a “photographer”; I do not think you have to be trained in photography or art to be a photographer or artists, but I do think you have to have some understanding of the history of the thing you are a part of, and I think it is especially important to understand the principles that underlay the art you are making. Maybe this all seems hypocritical in light of everything I said about the definition of what is and isn’t art becoming broader now, but hey, I did say that it’s complicated.

As always, this is a complex topic that I could bang on and on about for days, and this represents only a small portion of what I think on the topic. For the sake of brevity, though, and because I think you all are smart and get the gist, I’m going to call the post finished.

Thank you all for reading through this trilogy; I hope you got at least a little something out of it, and I hope that you will come back for my next post.

Photography as Art, Pt. 2: Photography's Place in Modern and Contemporary Art

In part one of this two-part series , we discussed how photography came to be recognized as a valid form of art within the art historical canon. As promised last time, I will still be discussing how photography is used in contemporary art and giving my personal take on photography as art, but I felt that I also needed to cover photography in modern art as well, since it did shape the way we use photography in today’s world. So, instead of including my personal opinion on photography as art in today’s post, I will instead be discussing it in a wrap-up post on Friday (yes, you get two posts this week — get excited). Once again, I will be including links to all of the sources I used in researching this post, and you can click on them for more information on the topic. For the sake of brevity, let’s get on with today’s talk.

Modernism as a movement took place from roughly the 1860’s to the mid 1960’s (this can vary slightly depending on who you are talking to, but this is the time span that is generally accepted). Modern artists embraced change and brought about the idea that art could talk about the self and reflect one’s own interests and experiences, whereas art prior to this period was largely commissioned by either wealthy individuals or by institutions such as the church. Artists began to use new materials, techniques, and mediums to express themselves, and they challenged the idea that art had to be purely representational and realistic (to read more about modern art, click here). Modern movements that embraced photography as a medium include Italian Futurism, Constructivism and Bauhaus, and Dada, and Surrealism (for more information, click here).

Within the Modernist movement, there is the Modern Photography movement, which took on the idea that a photograph was allowed to look like a photograph and, thus, Straight Photography was born in the early 1900’s. Straight Photography, as opposed to Pictorialism, abandoned the imitation of other art forms and sought to use photography in a way that was free of manipulation. An important figure in this movement was a critic named Sadakichi Hartmann, whose 1904 “Plea for Straight Photography” praised straightforward photography and the photographers who took this approach, such as Stiegletz, who by this time had moved away from Pictorialism in favor of the Straight approach (x). Other influential figures of this movement include Ansel Adams and Edward Wesson, who were part of Group f/64, a group founded by Adams that advocated for sharp-focus and clarity within photographs so as not to obscure reality. Modern Photography was (and still is) the block upon which many types of photography were built, such as Photojournalists, Street Photography, Documentary Photography, and Snapshot Photography (for more about Straight Photography, click here). As you can see, Modern Photography and Modern Art stand in opposition to one another’s ideals; one values moving toward realism, and one values moving away from realism. The argument can be made that photography is a large part of the shifting attitudes within the art world that brought about the Modernist movement. Photographers could make the same portraits mechanically and with relative speed that painters spent hours, days, and months making; painters were no longer needed in the art of realistic portraiture or landscapes, so they adapted to this change by embracing new techniques and styles within their work. Other artists, such as Man Ray and Andy Warhol, chose to include photography and photographic techniques within their work. Man Ray famously created “rayographs” (also known as photograms — but very punny, Man Ray) by placing random objects on photosensitive paper and exposing them to light, and Andy Warhol (who I will likely dedicate an entire blog post to one day) not only turned famous images of celebrities into Pop-Art paintings and prints, but spent a lot of time taking photographs, and he apparently wrote in one of his journals that he told a friend of his, "“I didn’t believe in art; I believed in photography.” (x) It would take a whole textbook to discuss photography in Modern Art, but I think you get the idea of its impact.

Let’s move on to Contemporary Art.

In the mid-1960’s through the early 1970’s, the art world shifted toward new ideas that fall under the umbrella term “Contemporary Art.” Contemporary Art as a movement has proven difficult to define, partly because it is so new and is still happening today (I myself wonder what people who look back on the Contemporary era will come to define it as and what it will come to be named in the future, since any current art is technically “contemporary,” but I digress). One thing that can generally be agreed upon is that Contemporary Art places great importance on the concepts and methods behind each artists’s work, and one thing that I found to be true to me about Contemporary Art throughout my time as a B.F.A. student is that Contemporary Art is open to the idea that anything can be art as long as there is a concept to back it up. Photography has certainly taken on a huge role in Contemporary Art, especially with the advent of the digital camera and cell phone cameras. We continue to practice Photojournalism, Street, Documentary, and Fashion Photography, just as the Straight Photographers did, and elements of Pictorialism continue to play a part in the work of contemporary photographers, and the added element of digital processes has allowed for further artistic expression and exploration within the medium. And, as ever, artists are constantly finding new ways to use photographs in combination with other artistic mediums, especially painting and printmaking.

One of the earliest movement in Contemporary Art is, in fact, Photorealism, a movement that came about around 1968 in which artists took photographs and tried to replicate them as realistically as humanly possible (this movement had a revival in the 1990’s with the advent of digital cameras and digital technology). (x) Photography has also been used in Performance Art, both to document it as it happened live and to capture performances that were specifically meant for the camera’s eye (x). Photography has been used within contemporary art to create new worlds (such as in the work of Andreas Gursky), to explore new identities within the self (such as in the work of Cindy Sherman), to create scenes that could have been pulled from the movies (such as in the work of Gregory Crewdson), to document the people and issues around them (such as in the work on Nan Goldin), and to explore the ideas of home, family, time, love, loss, and so much more. Currently, there is a rise in popularity of older photographic processes (now known as “alternative processes) being used in rebellion against the evasive digital processes that have taken over the contemporary world. Companies such as Lomography and Polaroid Originals are catering to this trend by selling cameras and film that hearken back to what are now the “old days” before the world went digital, and even digital applications have photographic filters that are meant to make the photographs you take on your cell phone look like vintage film photographs.

Photography, though it is new in comparison to other forms of art, has a history that is continuing to evolve at a rapid pace. It plays an important part in our everyday lives, and it is for this reason that it is such a popular medium among artists today.

I hope you got something out of this reading, and I hope to see you in my wrap-up post on Friday.

Photography as Art, Pt. 1: How it Came to Be Recognized as Art

In my last post, we discussed how photography is not necessarily, if ever, truthful, and how photographers, consciously or unconsciously, bend the truth to fit their personal narrative. This, naturally, leads to today’s discussion on photography as a form of art (so, if you haven’t read last week’s post, please, feel free to do so now). This post will be written in two parts — the first part giving a (very) brief overview of how photography became a recognized form of art within the artistic community and the second discussing my personal take on photography as art by discussing what constitutes art in the first place. Also, in my best effort to keep this post as brief as possible and to prevent accusations of plagiarism, I will be including links to the resources I used to write this post so that, with one click, you can have access to even more information on the history of photography (because who doesn’t want that in their life?). Without further chit-chat, here’s some history for you

Photography as an idea has been around since the time of the camera obscura, which used a pinhole to project an upside-down image onto a wall or other surface. Photography as we now know it came into being in the 1820’s when Joseph Nicéphore Niépce exposed a pewter plate coated in bitumen to light via the camera obscura to create the first permanent photographic image, and, from there, the medium took off (for more history on advancements within early photography, click here). At first, photography was seen largely as a form of science and was used for documentary purposes, such to take pictures of people or places. Another turning-point in early photography that made it seem like even less of an artistic endeavor came with the advent of the Original Kodak in 1888 Kodak Brownie in 1900, which were both commercially available so that the middle-class could affordably make images of their family and friends. This promoted the idea of photography as something any amateur could do because a large number of people could get their hands on cameras (oh, how times have not changed one bit).

The first group to lobby for photography as a fine art were the Pictorialists, who rejected the snapshots that cameras like those made by Kodak has made popular in favor of labor-intensive forms of photography that showed the medium to be more than a mechanical process and, instead, one that involved great skill and craftsmanship. Under the umbrella of Pictorialism were the Photo-Secessionists, a group of photographers chosen and led by Alfred Stiegletz, whose aim was to move away from the idea of photography as a realistic representation of the world and, instead, toward a painterly aesthetic (for more on the Photo-Secessionists and for examples of their work, click here). Stiegletz, with the founding of The Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (later re-branded simply as 291), was the first to exhibit photographs in a gallery setting, and was critical to the wider acceptance of photography as a fine art (what a guy).

In 1932, thirty years after the beginning of Photo-Secession, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City exhibited its first photograph; a year later, the first photographs were acquired for its collection and photographer Walker Evans exhibited the first one-man photography show, both within the museum and within the medium itself; in 1940, with influential photographer Ansel Adams as the Vice-Chairman of the Photography Committee, the Department of Photography at the MoMA was established, and, finally, in 1943, the Musuem of Modern Art Photography Center was established (to view the Department of Photography’s official press release, click here; for a complete chronology of the MoMA’s Department of Photography, click here). It is at this time in the 1940’s that, in The United States of America, photography becomes officially recognized as a form of fine art.

Needless to say, it would take an entire class (very likely more than one) to go over the history of photography, how it came to be known as art, and how it has since continued to evolve and thrive within the world of fine art. Also needless to say is that, although I have BFA in Fine Art, I am not (currently, anyway — maybe someday?) an art historian; I am simply interested in art history and, specifically and for obvious reasons, the history of photography. Finally, I felt that it was important to give the historical context of how photography became known as art before giving a talk on how photography is used in art today and my personal opinion on what makes it art because, well, context is everything, and, to understand the present, you must first understand the past (erm, well… in theory, anyway).

With all that being said, I hope you enjoyed today’s brief history lesson, and I hope to see you in my next post.

The Truth About The Un-Truth of Photography

What if I told you that every photograph you have ever seen or taken is a lie?

We are all aware that Photoshop exists and that the photographs of celebrities we see in magazines aren’t completely honest; we have all, at some point, dabbled in editing our own pictures, whether it be through filters on Snapchat and Instagram or making adjustments through Facetune and other photo editing apps. However, we tend to think of other photographs as being 100% honest, such as photographs taken by documentary photographers, or even photographs we take ourselves and upload straight to social media without touching any editing tools. This line of thinking is, unfortunately, flawed.

Psychological studies have shown that everything in life is about perception, and that perception is shaped by our experiences; the same is true about photography. Photographers bend everything to their own angle to reflect their version of reality. You can put two photographers in the same place at the same time and they will take two completely different photographs; neither photograph is more “truthful” about the place than the other, they are simply taken from individual vantage points. It is like two people being at the same party and one person saying “this party is the best party ever!” and the other saying “this party sucks!”; each person is stating what they think about the party based on their own experience of it, and neither person is “right” or “wrong” in their statement.

Every time we take a picture, we intentionally frame certain elements and leave out others. For example: I could take a photograph of one tidy corner of my room and caption it “My room is so clean right now!” while, behind me, everything else is a total wreck. The caption lied, but, because you saw a photograph, you took it as “evidence” that the caption was true.

Let’s give another example. How many times have you been dragged into taking a photograph with your family where everyone went into it grumbling? In the photograph, everyone is smiling and looks happy to be there, but you know that, in all honesty, no one wanted to do it and no one was happy. The picture tells one story, but behind it is a completely different one.

Let’s give one last example. You are looking through a history book, and in it are pictures of various historical figures, pictures from wars, pictures from events throughout time. These photographs are, of course, of real people, of real events, and, because of this, you take the photograph and what it represents at face-value. It is true because it is history, and history really happened. Except for one thing — those photographs tell only one version of what “really happened,” and the rest is dropped off into space and time, never to be known about. Furthermore, as I discussed earlier, the photographer, consciously or unconsciously, framed the photograph to tell the story they wanted to tell, not to tell the story as it necessarily was.

This is not to say that photographs are not powerful tools. Photographs are powerful tools in documenting people, places, and events, in solving crimes, in studying medicine and science; photographs can even be drivers of social change. What I am saying, however, is that you have to be critical of what you are looking at and not assume that, because it is a photograph, it is “the truth,” because the truth is that we use photographs to manipulate the truth, whether we mean to or not. The truth is that photography is not about truth at all because there is no singular truth to anything; it is about showing others the world either as we see it or as we want it to be seen.

Photography: How and Why?

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Hello everyone, and welcome to the blog! This space will be dedicated to sharing various photography-related content. You can feel free to send me an email on topics you would like for me to discuss by clicking “contact” at the top of the page and filling out the form or drop me a comment below — I am open to any suggestions you have!

Future posts will be more formal and less long-winded, but today, I want to sit down and share with you how I got into photography and why it captivated me enough for me to want to pursue a degree (and, hopefully, one day, a full-time career) in it.

How photography?

I don’t remember exactly when — maybe when I was 9 or 10 — my mother’s mother and her husband gave me my first point-and-shoot camera (which, funnily enough, I still have, and, yes, it still works!). This was, of course, back in the days of ye-old film photography, and I vividly remember the excitement of finishing a roll and my grandmother going to Wal-Mart to get it developed and printed. Most of the photographs weren’t very good, I’ll admit, but I did enjoy taking them, and this is what planted the first seed in my journey to becoming a photographer.

When I was 16, I had a history teacher who was also a photographer, and, for whatever reason, I showed her a few pictures I had taken with a point-and-shoot Nikon that my dad’s parents had gotten me for Christmas (again, I still have this camera), and she told me she thought that, with some instruction, I could be a pretty good photographer. This planted the second seed.

The third and final seed was planted during my Freshman year at Birmingham-Southern College. I began a work-study job in the Fine Arts Department, and my coordinator’s office was located in the art building and directly beside the photography professor’s office. Everyone talked about how amazing this professor was, and, as I got to know her, I knew that I wanted to take her introductory photography class. I also knew that this class was difficult to get into because, what can I say, my professor was in-demand, so I asked if she would be willing to sign me in during registration, and, kindly, she said yes.

Now, what you need to understand before I continue is that I went into college genuinely believing that I wanted a business degree because everyone said this was the thing to do if I wanted a job in the future. My first sign that this would not last, however, was when I insisted on using my Christmas money to purchase my own Nikon DSLR to use in class instead of borrowing one of the department’s cameras.

I was so excited for this class to start. So excited, in fact, that, being the impatient eager-beaver that I am, I started learning how to use all the various modes and functions on my dSLR in January before term started in February because there was no way I could let this magnificent machine I had spent $475 on sit around untouched until the digital unit of my class rolled around. This should have been my second sign that being a business major was not going to last.

We started off this introductory class with a film unit. During this segment, we shot on black-and-white film and learned how to process and print it ourselves. This process was both frustrating and thrilling to me. I started off not being very good at it — I, like many of my classmates, ruined several rolls of film and had several more turn out with a few usable images while the rest were blotchy from being incorrectly rolled onto the processing wheel — but, by the end, I wound up with a few winning rolls and a few winning images (again, some of which you will find on this site). We spent the second half of the semester on a digital unit, during which we learned how to use the cameras, how to use Photoshop to do basic enhancements, and how to print our photographs using professional printers. I continued to find success in this course and, to my excitement, my professor approached me (as she does all of the students who are not seniors and show potential in photography) to invite me to continue on into her upper-level courses.

The third sign that I would not continue as a business major came when I decided at the end of the semester to declare a minor in art. Looking back now, I knew in my heart that I wanted to do photography, but my head was still screaming that I needed to stick with business because, you know, the job thing. I began my Sophomore year taking an introductory art history class, which I loved, and Two-Dimensional Design (which I took with my photography professor because, yet again, she was willing to sign me in). It was at this time also that I took the introductory business class (which I had not been able to get into at all my Freshman year), and macro-economics. Though I enjoyed the professors, I was not entirely good at the classes, and I found them difficult to enjoy anyway because my head and heart tended to stay in my art and art history courses instead of in the business courses.

The following semester I took a course called “Photography: From Chemistry to Digital," and this was the class where I found what I loved. I struggled through it, and I was not always good at it, but this is where I found a true love for film photography and all that it offered. This was the course that encouraged me to try out all of the toy cameras that I love so much today — this was the course that shaped who I would become as a photographer. It was also in the middle of this semester that I officially changed my major to “Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art” and joined forces with an amazing group of artists who I am so lucky to call my friends and colleagues.

The rest of my time in college was, like the photography courses I mentioned earlier, not always easy, and, also as I mentioned earlier, I was not always good. I told myself (and, admittedly, still tell myself sometimes) that I was a bad photographer and would never make it. However, because I don’t know how to quit, I kept going. Why? Because, at the end of the day, photography gives me a purpose and a goal. One day, I want to pursue a graduate degree in photography so that I can become a professor and teach others to love photography as much as I do. I do photography because it is my way of showing everyone who I am and how I see the world around me. It is my way of keeping track of my life so that one day I can look back at the photographs and remind myself where I came from. It is my way of pouring my frustrations and joys and everything in-between into something constructive and beautiful, into something that I can share instead of always having it all locked inside.

Why photography?

Because, at the end of the day, it is my way of connecting both with myself and with everyone else, and that feeling of connection is the single most important factor in my life because, without it, what is the point of anything, anyway?