Photography As Art …
Submitted by Alex Park
Dignity. Mixed Media on Canvas
Carney. Manipulated Polaroid SX 70 on Canvas, from the Carney Series
Winter Cabbage. Digital photograph, from the "Looking Down" Series
Or more appropriately, Photography IS Art.
The debate surrounding photography, and its place in the traditional art world has been raging for over 100 years.
Fast forward to 2021 and the confusion heightens with the explosion of digital imagery, social media sites, crypto art and the ever-present, high quality cell phone camera.
In this endless discussion, semantics matter! The words we use to describe and categorize our various points of view about photography and art create a lasting imprint of what art is … and isn’t.
But first, a little bit of historical perspective. In the early 1900’s the arguments supported by traditional painters and the general public were that:
Photography was simply a mechanistic process involving a device (camera), chemical manipulations with little or no human interaction or inspiration.
As a medium photography was useful only as a supportive discipline to other art disciplines … rarely equal in creativeness to drawing or painting. It was regarded as the tool of the lazy artist.
With the growth of purchasing cameras by the middle class – it was cheapening art.
Sound familiar?
Here’s another point of view. Photography has now developed as a serious, accessible art form. It has become a powerful expression of our everyday life, practiced and shared by hundreds of millions of people around the world.
The camera is simply this – a mechanical tool used to capture an image. In my own artistic practice I have such a tool – a small point and shoot which I routinely use to record my “happy snaps.” Vacation pictures, family outings, fleeting moments in time are caught in an instant and used, discarded or happily shared with no artistic agenda. The camera is the equivalent of a sculptor’s chisel, an artist’s brush, a print maker’s press, a wood block chisel, or a dancer’s shoes.
Renowned Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson does not “take pictures” but rather “makes images.” Susan Sontag’s perspective further clarifies the distinction … “Painters construct, photographers reveal.”
Photography for me becomes art when it reveals a deep vision, personal conviction or engaging idea that I feel compelled to explore, create and ultimately communicate.
