"Is Photography Art?"

What's wrong with it then? I quite like it!

This is an interesting perspective. If you're implying that a snap is not art, then it's also one of the most extreme criteria for allowing a photograph to also be art that I've heard.

To insist on someone having a distinctive (let alone unique!) style before they can call their work art is pretty harsh.

It might not be unique art; it might not be interesting art; it might not be good art.

But certainly I, and a good many other people here should probably give up now if the bar is set as high as that.

It's not asking much to progress towards a distinctive style, is it?

Distinctive style... right around the time you realize you got one... it's time to change it, or you'll be out of style.

We can all hit upon a fabulous image. And that can be art.

However to be an artist, I'm pretty sure, its a matter of repeating the trick.

The only way to set yourself apart from the others with their noses to the wheel, is to have a style. No point in adopting somebody else's style unless you are part of a collective. So the style must be distinct.

What isn't art, is banging out the same old, same old, just the same as all the other schmucks who got there before you. What do they say about Shakespeare, he just got in first with the clichés (Yes I'm pulling your chains).

Doesn't mean the image isn't decent, just means its not Art.

I don't mind having my chain yanked... allow me to yank back

I think this is rubbish. It might not be good art, or original, interesting to others, or the foundation for a financially rewarding career as a professional artist.

But if someone has had an honest stab at reproducing their view of a scene, it's not for me to say it's not art. I might hate it, find it dull, or be annoyed by its extreme clichédness (is that a word?).

I might even think it's not art (by my own internal measures - Tracey Emin's legendary bed comes to mind as an example of 'not art').

But what I'm not entitled to do is insist that a lack of originality on its own is a defining criterion.

Of course photography is art, that i why it is taught in art school. However with most things in life some is good some is poor.

I think Doug's right. It may not be to do with making images that self consciously go after a consistent visual style, but the idea is that an 'Artist' is trying to do something more interesting than just 'reproducing a scene' - there would be an expression of ideas or a certain way of viewing things in there. That would indeed create a sort of linking thread between the images. And there is no particular link, in my view, between how technically good the photograph is and whether it is art - some pretty ropey photographs may be very good 'art' whereas some excellent photos may not be art at all. We have to defer to the current understanding of what art is, in our culture.

Someone mentioned this competition Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/1895182/david-chan...

I recall seeing the 2nd prize gaining print in the nationals a few weeks back warning image may offend.

The winning portrait I think is actually very good, captures a controversial subject, hunting, contains a young girl on a first hunt, again controversial & seen in its proper aspect I think is a very good capture.

As with all these sort of competition without seeing all the entries how do you know what they where judged against???

Hmm, I will bow out of this one. The portrait prize for me, the subject is okay but the actual picture is nothing special.
I just remembered such crap as unmade bed, if this is art then I will happily change my perspective

I'm not sure why bother sweating whether something's 'Art' or not. Is it interesting, is perhaps more to the point.

Art is Anything someone wants to call art! There you go beat that.

I think it is both art and science. Science is getting the exposure correct (although this crosses the boundary a little) and producing a sharp image.

Art is the composition of the photo.

I am starting to get somewhere with the science bit, but as long as I draw breath I will not get the artistic side. I look at some of the photos here and although I accept they have merit as others make approving comment on them, I have to say they leave me cold.

So suppose a painter creates a painting that reproduces a scene exceptionally realistically*.

It's not art, whereas an impressionist view of the same scene is art?

Pah.

Of course it's art. Even if you're just reproducing the scene, as you saw it. It's still your view of that scene. It won't be the same as another's, and just because you're not the first to have had the idea in no way invalidates your own creation.

As I said, you don't have to like it, but you don't have the right to dismiss it as not art.

Well of course, you do, but that way lies a terrible arrogance.


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* They do exist - I was in a gallery in the Lake District a couple of months ago, inspecting some paintings that were so realistic that I had to look for some time, before I was convinced that they weren't photos, printed on to a canvas-type paper. Sadly I don't recall the artist's (sic) name, but they were truly amazing. Amazing particularly by the craft, but also by the art. For a person to create such things of beauty, and for them not to be art, is just madness in my view.

It is a skill to create a reproduction but just representing something with no input of personality/individuality/originality renders it pretty meaningless. Its just the view. It doesn't matter who does it, as another ten can come along and do the same thing. (or print off from their memory card, truly democratic). "Is that a Joe Bloggs? or a Cynthia Smith, its so realistic I can't tell the difference." Isn't that just artisan?

To have the soul of a human captured in a representation, their individuality expressed in an original object renders it art and the originator an Artist.

You can guess its Uta Barth or Gerhard Richter or Man Ray or Irving Penn or Vettriano or Lowry or Alfred Wallis or Ben Nicholson or Barbara Hepworth or Henry Moore or Richard Billingham or Cindy Sherman or Testino or Paul Nash. Who's that with his nob out, hmmmm probably Tillmans, who's made an office out of cardboard? Thomas Demand maybe? Who are those two men in suits? Gilbert and George?

Say their names and the images pop out into your head. Distinct, original, soulful, stylised.

John from down the street photographing his nob or building a cardboard photocopier and taking pictures is going to get carted off, not lauded.

Sure, not all art is produced by artists.
But to be an artist I think you need to have a distinct original style.

Of course there is a right to dismiss things, it's called criticism, people make careers out of it, students study it and professors write books about it. Its not arrogance, its just what happens, its just expressing a view.