Jim Sidinger
(K=105) - Comment Date 1/21/1999
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Art: "1. The production, expression or realm of what is beautiful" - from Websters Desk Dictionary (sorry, I have no better one handy)
Exactly which part of photography excludes it from being art?
I agree with the supposition that much of photography is oriented toward the technical. I have often heard that there is a little bit of "engineer" in all photographers, otherwise they'd be painters. But when I look at the other arts, I see technical issues with them all to one degree or another. How paint colors are created, how they have to be applied to look "thus", etc.
Often, I think that the reason some argue that photography is not art is that they think the photographer just walks up and snaps the picture and sends it out to the drugstore to be printed into a masterwork. Anyone who has seen original negatives vs. the final prints can refute this (I had the good fortune to take a workshop which included a session at Ansel Adams' home some years ago and got a good look at the "Moonrise" negative. Talk about work to create a good print from a difficult negative!!), but how many critics do?
The other hang up is from the art selling world where they get hung up on the infinite reproducability (sp?) of the work. Here the argument has less to do with the definition of art than the price the work can bring on the market. Besides, I've seen lithos being turned out by the 100's and noone disputes the fact that they are art.
I guess that if some want to keep photography outside the "Official Arts" there is not much we can do other than keep asking "why" and trying to help them understand. For myself, I see how people react to a good photograph and I know it is art to them.
Jim
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Jeff Spirer
(K=2523) - Comment Date 1/21/1999
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Here's two answers to this question:
1) The question "Is xyz art" is not worth asking and should be banned from all photography forums. The discussion around this question goes round and round in circles which spiral inwards until the question migrates to "What is art."
2) The San Jose Museum of Art just had a show of Richard Misrach's landscapes (or desertscapes if that's what you want to call them.) Since they were color and they were landscapes and they were in an art museum, they must be art.
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tom meyer
(K=2752) - Comment Date 1/21/1999
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I heard someone say that there were only two different kinds of wine... Good wine and Bad wine.
Not only do I think that Landscape photography has the potential to be great Art, I think it is essentially an American Art due to the attitudes American Men have towards "their" land. Perhaps the advent of photography, timed perfectly with the appropriation of the American West by the invading technology enhanced white folk from across the pond, created this perception in my head, but it seems the demographics of Landscape Photographers would support this theory. ( White Men Stake Out Territory, Send William Henry Jackson to Record the New Territory.)
It does not escape my sense of irony that this question is posed by someone who shoots a hole in my theory by virtue of ethnic origin...but I still think it's true, historically speaking. And I don't think it means white guys are better at it, I think we're just drawn to it by a sense of cultural destiny...t
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Dan Lyke
(K=122) - Comment Date 1/21/1999
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Of the art I enjoy, I've spent the most money on color landscape prints to hang in my home. Whether or not it's art, and whether or not there's that much new to say, it's ended up that that's what I've chosen to spend money on and put on my walls.
And yes, many of the dramatic shots are overdone. I just came back from Yosemite with a couple of 4x5 sheets of Velvia that are going to get put in sleeves and stuffed in the back of a drawer, probably never to be seen again. But the pieces that most speak to me are the subtle pictures. The dramatic stuff is cool eye candy, but I've found that the photographer who can compose a tree, or a leaf, is one who ends up keeping me coming back to the image over and over again, and not leave me bored even if I see the image every day.
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Bob Pilgrim
(K=30) - Comment Date 1/21/1999
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I've been involved in photography since 1946! The question "...is photography an artfrom has been raised many time over the years. The answer anyone offers is necessarily subective and leads to tautologys. One of many answers I can offer is photography is definitly a form of applied technology. To find out what art is log onto my wife's website: http://members.xoom.com/Stellarte. I did most of the photography; she did the art. (To be continued)
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Bob Pilgrim
(K=30) - Comment Date 1/21/1999
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I've been involved in photography since 1946! The question "...is photography an art from?" has been raised many time over the years. The answer anyone offers is necessarily subective and leads to tautologys. One of many answers I can offer is photography is definitly a form of applied technology. To find out what art is log onto my wife's website: http://members.xoom.com/Stellarte. I did most of the photography; she did the art. (To be continued
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e. a.
(K=77) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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why wouldn't color landscape photography be art? any less so than b&w? is it because there is a little more abstraction in the b&w(most people see in color), so therefore there could be some underlying "meaning" to the photo? So often when looking at other art people wonder "what does it mean?". Is that what makes b&w more artistic because it could be "more interpretive"?
I think people are still holding on to some archaic definition of what is art, and that new forms of expression challange that definition and as a defense people argue that the new expression isn't art. People in general are resistant to change. Photography has been around a lot less than painting, which is by most standards a "traditional art". Now we are seeing the cycle repeat itself with digital photography. The same people that are trying to establish "traditional" photography as art are now bashing digital as non-art. Perhaps with the advent of digital photography, "traditional" photography might for once be able to stake its claim as a "traditional art" too. Whether it be in color or b&w.
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tom meyer
(K=2752) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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Black and white is subjective, removed from the literal by the abstract notion of converting a color world to a monochromatic abstraction. Color photography is all about the objective nature of the world. This is best illustrated by "Fine Art" nudes in monochrome, and pornography, always honestly executed in color. Larry Flint doesn't publish "Hustler" in Black and White for a reason, those women are objects...
Landscape photography, for me has always been about the details, the stones, the sky, the trees, the mud, the sand... the THINGS that make up the world. Color.
In portraits and all photographs of people, the subject of the images is not the shell of the body, it's how the person presents the body, how the body betrays the spirit and reveals the person to me, like words in a book, black and white...t
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Russell Edwards
(K=329) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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Instead of asking "is it art" and running round in circles and getting our heads stuck up our ...hmm I might leave that one for now..., why don't we ask "does this thing have value"? Or, more precisely, does my experience of this object have value? A beatiful scenic colour photograph can be a joy to look at for what it is. What's so wrong with that? Just because it has been done 1000 times before and is a literal interpretation of the scene and did not require much insight on the behalf of the photographer does not mean the picture is without value. As I just asked in another forum, why should art have to be associated with an act of great insight on the behalf of a creating artist? How about the universe as art -- the most astounding thing there is, and without a creator. Or if you disagree with the last bit, how about the creator hirself. Something of unfathomable value and depth but without a creator.
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Steve Nicholls
(K=15) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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It shouldn't make any difference whether the image is colour or black and white but it often does, especially in photography.
EG. "Oh aren't the colours beautiful." Never mind the subject matter as long as the "colours are beautiful." Whereas with black and white most people get past the colour barrier to deal with the subject much quicker.
It is all Mr. Kodak, Agfa etc's fault, we need to ask Is photography art? To most people .. NO! Answer .. Because I [they] can do that, which they can't by the way. Everyone who picks up a camera thinks he/she is an artist .. the reality is very different. I'm a reasonable technician with a good eye [the other one is ok as well] but even though I have only 35 years as a photographer, I don't consider myself an artist. An artist no matter what the medium connects in a very special way with the veiwer. I may on the other hand be an artist for one shot to one person. I know it is cliche' but art is in the eye of the beholder unless we constantly walk around with a mirror in front of us.
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dan woodlief
(K=60) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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My answer will be similar to Russell's. I think landscape photographs are like any others. They become art when they make you feel. Otherwise they are snapshots. So as with most paintings and sculptures too: to some its art and to some its not.
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tom meyer
(K=2752) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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A representational approach to landscape without a philosophical context is just a postcard, something that makes you long to experience the real thing, and it has no other value ...t
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John O'Connell
(K=362) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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Black & white vs. color is an interesting issue in photography/art. Apart from the issue of realism vs. abstraction inherent in each medium, there is the issue of permanence. How long a work of art can be appreciated is of great concern to certain people. Is a Polaroid art? What about the storage life of a sheet of Velvia vs. a sheet of Tri-X?
I don't require permanence in art. I require a certain amount of permanence in photography, perhaps more than conventional color prints from negatives provide. But there are certain situations where the clear impermanence of that color photo from my Polaroid 180 signifies something about the composition.
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Howard Creech
(K=3161) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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Art is about artists, not about the viewers/purchasers/critics/teachers. A couple of cases in point would be Van Gogh and O'Toole (A Confedaeracy of Dunces) neither of whom were regarded as artists until after their deaths. Art is created by artists to present their unique view of the world..acceptance by the mainstream is secondary to the act/need. Can color landscape photography be art? If the artist who created it did so to fulfill his/her own unique vision. For an example look to the photographs of Eliot Porter
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Rich Ruh
(K=45) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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For one thing, many non-photographers don't appreciate the difficulty of making really good color landscape photographs. "How hard can it be? Just pick up the camera and shoot. Voila!" I think this leads to the "How can it be art? Anyone with a camera can do it." line-of- thought.
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steve
(K=1127) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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1. I can't believe we're all wasting this much time on "is it art?"
2. I thought Stieglitz slayed this dragon. Weston, Adams, et al spent years kicking the corpse just to make sure it was dead, and a whole raft of contemporary photographers are currently beating the carcass with black-and-white and colored photographs to make sure it stays down.
3. My impression is there are only two kind of art - the interesting kind and the boring kind. Examples of either can be found in all genres or art.
4. Why don't we all quit this thread & go take photos?
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shawn
(K=30) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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I think colour landscape can lead to incredible art: case in point, Gerhard Richter. Can anyone tell me the name of any other artists in this vein? Sorry I haven't the time right now to read anything but the question here. I'll come back to it later. Shawn Gibson ps great idea for a forum
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tom meyer
(K=2752) - Comment Date 1/22/1999
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Shawn, see Richard Misrach's Sky photographs. Ethereal is the best, single word I can offer. His "Desert Cantos" work is sublime, I'm not too crazy about the "Bravo" images, but it's a fabulous concept, well developed and reaching far beyond photographic imagery...t
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james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 1/28/1999
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Leave this stincking, rotten carcass alone and spend your time thinking, seeing and creating photographs regardless of whether you think it is art or or not. Color landscape photography as art? See Misrach, Porter, and especially Burkett. When you can photograph and print that good and touch people like that, then you will know what it's like to be an artist. Cave art? Is it art? Silly question. James
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