on Nov 2nd, 2007Portrait of a Photographer as an Artist
This post started out as the beginning of yesterdays post, however with the photos from yesterday it was running very long and I wanted to take the time to reread some of this and hopefully better elaborate my thoughts on the topic. So with out further ado I give you todays blog post on photography of all things.
I have noticed that different people approach photography different ways. I am bypassing talking about casual snap shot photography and jump into people who view their work as an art or a craft. I have noticed that a good percentage of the photographers I have talked to have a preference for reality. The photographers I talk to on a regular basis all shot digital and they all seem to be in favor of computerized image editing. The photographers who do not currently edit their images with a program such as Apple’s Aperture or Adobe’s Lightroom and Photoshop are planing to do so in the future. What do I mean when I talk about a photographer with a strong reality preference that uses image editing tools such as photoshop? These photographers prefer (please note that this is not a judgment but rather a commentary on style) to use the technology to to create black and white photographs, make skin tones more natural, make colors more rich, cropping and to adjust highlight/shadow detail. I know some of these concepts may not be very familiar for non-photographers, but what it boils down to is a reality based set of adjustments. They are not creating something unreal, but rather they are usually attempting to compensate for the limitations of the camera. This seems to be a very common and popular approach in the photography community, at least in my experience.
I see myself coming to photography from a different direction. I am a fan of reality based photography, however I do not have a desire to limit myself to it or focus on it exclusively. I would like to see photography grow in a way similar to fine arts such as drawing, painting and sculpture. I embrace story telling and emotion sharing. I like my images to share a feeling or an idea when possible and this often means going outside the bounds of reality based photography. I enjoy this work very much and I often times am very happy with the end results. I like many people though crave feedback and get discouraged when that feedback is less than positive. The comment that I really didn’t like though was “It isn’t real though!” That is when I find myself compelled to try and explain that photography has never ben real and at the same time is as real as other fine arts. This usually includes me trying to point out how photography is not a true representation of reality and has never been.
You see on your standard camera there is a huge range of lens lengths, often measured in millimeters. Inside that range only a small portion of lens lengths come close to representing normal human field of vision. A photograph represents a narrow section of time, unlike continuos normal human vision. Most photography generates two dimensional results when we see in three dimensions (four if you count time as mentioned above). Black and white photography is generally accepted and appreciated and very seldom approximates human vision. Photography has a much shallower dynamic (ability to recognize details in shadows and highlights) range than human eyesight. That is just the beginning.
So can photography be viewed as an artistic toll, less like a painting and more like the paints or the canvas? Should photography be limited to reality approximation? Should photography even be considered a fine art? I think as the technologies advance and the human condition changes people will be more willing and accepting of blurring the lines that these questions form.
In other housekeeping items; near the end of this month I have a good sized paper due for my epistemology class. I might post some thoughts and analysis of different theories on the weekends to better help me flesh out the direction I want my paper to go in. So stay tuned if you want to know more about the theories of knowledge.
This is an excellent explanation of photography as an art form. I’ll admit, though, that I didn’t understand this until I met you and got to observe what you put into your photography.
Thanks love.
I agree with Lesley, the explanation was wonderful.
I don’t consider myself a photographer by any means, but I like to think that when I do take pictures, it’s more to preserve memories and tell stories than to capture art.
Preserving memories is great. Telling stories is also great. However have you considered that when you are telling a funny story to a friend you might embellish it some, tell it in a funny way. When you tell a scary story to a friend you try and tell it in a scary way. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, so if you are going to tell a story using photographs you should feel free to embellish the photographs also.
There are obvious limitations to this, such as when you are presenting something as solid truth or as news.