What is Art Photography?

What is Photography as an art form? To describe Photography as an art is a very complex task. There is a huge history of Photography and to be able to cover it's history and it's meaning in a 12 week course is difficult. In my previous post I mentioned that I see photography as a means of capturing a moment in time. I use photographs as artefacts and see them as my own personal collection that I share with myself, family and friends. However, photography as an art is something different entirely.


Photography first was used as an aid for painters, eliminating the need to pay for models or spend long hours of time sketching.


'It has (also) been suggested that photography encouraged the Impressionist painters to experiment with manners of painting which could also capture a sense of the moment.'


Photography itself became an art form and took on the views of the realists. The realists were more conservative and did not percieve Photography as an art.


'It must be admitted by the most determined opponent of photography as a fine art that the same object represented by different photographers will produce different pictorial results and this invariably not only because the one man uses different lenses and chemicals than the other but because there is something different in each mans mind which somehow gets communicated to his fingers end and thence to his his pictures.' (Harker, 1988, p46)


Photography uses the elements of art: line, shape, form, space, texture, value and colour; and thhere are many different forms that Photography can take. Such as architectural photography, landscape photography, fashion photography, portrait photography etc.





An example of line used in Photography.



Even Contemporary Fashion Photography incorporates Colour and Shape into their images.

Ofcourse this is only a brief summary of Photography of an art form. There are many different events, aspects and debates of Photography that contribute to it floursishing as an art form. That would require a lot more information and discussion than the word limit that we have been provided with. :)