Photography is just a craft

I wonder if you'll get any takers... Does anybody at all seriously claim that photography cannot qualify as art?!
It is pretty much impossible to reach any common understanding as to what constitutes art. Whether a particular work qualifies as art is therefore, to me, essentially a personal matter for the viewer of the work (who may also be the creator of that work). Whether anyone else agrees with the viewer's assessment is another question - it may be art to you and not to me, or good art to you and poor art to me. Or we might both choose to avoid using the word "art" and instead concentrate on the effect it has upon us. When a particular work has a strong effect on a lot of viewers it might start to be widely labelled as art or even as great art.
Sharris, what items are eligible for art funding depends upon the views and limited consensus of the ever-changing group of people who are empowered to hand out such funding (and no doubt also upon whatever set of funding rules applies, which were in turn based upon the limited consensus of some other previous bunch of people). Just because it is funded does not mean that everyone would agree that it is art or good art. And plenty of unfunded work might be viewed by many as very effective art.
So, in my view, a photograph can certainly be art (and photography generally can be called "an art" if you like), but only a subset of photos are meaningful or noteworthy to me. And some works of photographic art (and art generally) are created more skillfully than others. And then you start to move into the realm of craft...
I reckon most people would agree that, apart from purely found items presented in situ, pretty much anything that might be called art involves some degree of craft, whether that be naive use of a paintbrush or glue-pot or camera, or incredibly skilled use of a paintbrush, chisel, or camera and chemicals, etc. There is certainly plenty of scope for craft in making photographic art, but some photos that I would consider artful exhibit very limited craft, while some masterpieces of craft leave me cold.

Now where DID that "beating a dead horse" icon go?

Oh, here it is...Dead Link Removed

My take, for what it's worth: photography cannot be summed in a single words such as art or craft. There is a vast continuum of motives that have all been called photography at some point. And so it should be: it's your art, your craft, your profession, your obsession.... define it however you wish. As long as its your creative output, then that is your license.

sharris said:

CI think it goes too far to say that a single artist's vision is completely relative and only they must deem their results as effective to be considered art. That leaves too many heaps of trash in the backyards of the mentally ill occupants eligible for art funding! (And also explains why most of my 'pictures' would not be considered art!)

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Art can be art and only be appreciated by the creator or a single viewer. The scope of the work is not what makes it art (have you ever stood in a specific place at just the right time to see something that moved you and that only you saw or are there experiences unique to you that may offer a very specific touchstone?). Art needn't be grand nor does it need to be understood or appreciated by all or even many. Great art can speak to many through our commonality (Shakespeare) or to the few (de Kooning). "Small" art could be something just for yourself and the few like you.

I'll just add a P.S. to my previous post... I'd describe different phases of my own photographic process in different terms. For me, composition (at its best) is 'art', whereas my printmaking is definitely 'craft'... no art there at all, alas! And I doubt that my printmaking will ever get beyond 'craft' because I simply don't care enough about that phase of the process. For me, at this point... the art ends when the shutter button is clicked. After that it's all craft. I am working on my attitude though, when it comes to printmaking

It's only ART if...

you've f***ed with it in Photoshop. That's when it has ceased to be Photography.
I don't know what "art" is, but I do know that I generally don't care much for art that doesn't employ sound craftmanship. Craftmanship needs to be mastered to the point that it's nearly unconscious. If you're still working out the kinks in your technique, your art is going to have trouble achieving your vision. That said, technical mastery is a pretty lofty goal, as is making real and enduring art. To say that photography can't be art is arbitrary and ridiculous. We should all aspire to be craftsman and artists.

Just my 2 cents worth.

I must take issue here. Bruce Jensen and I both agree and think that photography is and must be more than mere craft. Certainly craft is a major and vital part of photography for if we do not learn our craft then we will be unable to realize our own best dreams and idealizations of what's best in our art. For it is "Art". That point has been debated long enough and beaten into a worn horse hide long ago. Photography is one of many means of realizing the outlets of a creative life and soul, which, if one does not respond to will rise up and get you in other ways that are often not pleasant. We all have creative urges in our lives. Some of us feel them in the lines or the field of photography.... trying to show the world in a way not yet done; in a way so resplendent that it will make others respond and see the real beauty of nature or the human body or the real tradedgy of the human situation. Photography can do this in ways painting, song, opera, plays and other forms cannot. Craft is needed to do this but much more beyond craft is necessary to do it really well.

Logan

Isn’t the artistic side the goal, while the craftsmanship the mean to reach this goal? Only in documentary photography the goal steps away from art, in order to increase objectivity. But even than, the craft remains a mean, the goal of documentary photography being more on the scientific side: fidelity to reality.

Which is more important? None,… or both! They are just different things, converging to the same target. Wrong would be if they switch their places: when art becomes a mean for a craftsmanship goal. This would make absolutely no sense to me.

Otherwise, I see no conflict between the two, just convergence (like I said before).

Well... at the risk of taking a beating...

I don't consider photography a true artform. But then I don't consider fine literature an art either. My personal opinion about art is that it requires not only vision but tactile control/finesse as well... and I don't mean dodging/burning or film processing, etc. I know my opinion is contrary to most definitions of art but I'm still entitled to have said opinion. I mean, one simply cannot compare even the finest photograph by the greatest master to a DaVinci or Michelangelo painting or sculpture. It's not only in the mind and heart and soul... but also in control of the hands.

Again.. just MHO.

To step back in to these waters I've muddied, I'll assert what I think many of us can agree on - that Art and Craft are mutually dependent in the medium we call photography. That is, Art without Craft is a message without a medium, and Craft without Art is a medium without a message. I specifically was inspired to start this thread because someone elsewhere on APUG asserted that he believed photography is generally a craft, and that the work of specific individuals can approach (emphasis mine) art. Photography as a medium has been around for the past 170-some odd years, and it is well accepted into the canon of artistic media by now. Obviously, not every photograph is art, nor does every photograph evince craft (in many cases, a photograph will demonstrate an absolute lack of both). I'd love to see someone defend this assertion in a reasoned argument, because as we have just seen in the past three and some odd pages of comments, the vocal majority is quite capable of defending the opposite assertion.

http://www.artcraftchemicals.com/

I rest my case, if there was one.

These two statements answer the question for me: 1) Art is about space and illustration is about things. 2) There is craft without art, but there can be no art without craft.

Mastery of craft is a prerequisite for art, but what defines art is the intent of the photographer (or painter, or sculptor, etc.). To me, if a picture is "about" a subject or is trying to tell a story or make a statement, it's not art.

IMNSHO
Art can be made with out great technical facility it may not be as easily produced and or easily repeated, but craft is not a prerequisite. Documentation can be art, it just might not have been conceived as art. I have known a few artists who have had the bare minimum skills needed to operate a camera, but still produced stunning work (it was all in their eye/brain). I have met countless photographers who have the craft nailed and could not produce a keeper (as in something that was moving) to save their life. Art is in the brain/eye/heart and is greatly assisted by skill but skill is not needed. Many of the greatest artists of the last 100 plus years have had mediocre or worse skills (Van Gogh) and have produce world changing art. Finally art can be about things, the subject can be an object it is the interpretation of the subject that counts.

Nicholas Lindan said:

Does he photograph them as a triptych: a work in progress; the finished piece; and finally its destructive tidal dénouement?

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I don't think he does but that would be good.

There's a bit about him here: http://www.yarmouthgallery.com/categories/Sculpture/Eric Geddes.html


Steve.

what is problematic here is the notion of "art", to accept art as an external almost ethereal concept. but in the real sense "art" as we know it pretty much determined by several institutions like museums, auction hoses, galleries and so forth. Jim Chinn said "The decision by the intelligensia as to the satus of photography as art was made a long time ago." it is true and this decision is not the public's it is strictly the work of opinion leaders of our society and for "art" the opinion leaders are those institutions i stated above. however even if we accept that art exists and it is sacred and external to this world, we must know that the distinction between the artist and the craftmanship was not clear until 17-18th century. so it is a fairly new concept. i think our modern age is more romantic than the "romantics" in that sense, probably because of the need to create a meaning in a fairly meaningless world.

It may be difficult to find many on this site to defend the 'photography isn't art' point of view, since this tends to be a view held mostly by those who are not fans of photography.

Someone very much against photography being considered art is Brian Sewell, well known (well known in the UK at least, not sure how well known in the rest of the world he is...) art critic of the London Evening Standard.

At risk of getting myself done for slander let's just say he is rather outspoken and tends to be very good at making enemies. "He keeps his Christamas card list very short", said one commentator. Incredibly pompous and with the World's most irritating upper class English accent he is very... outspoken.

He is on record many times as saying that photography is not and can not be art.

Here's a few quotes.

"Photography is a field with which I have no sympathy for its claims to be an art".

About Gary Winogrand:
"The beastliness of the human race is confirmed by his random lens - and so too is the vanity of all photographers"

About Robert Mapplethorpe:
"Not an artist, just a photographer"

I heard him give a long rant on television a few years ago (whilst talking about why Mapplethorpe isn't an artist) in which he said that people who consider photograhers to be artists have no idea what a creative artist is. He then went on to criticise the way all photographers stand in the same place, click the shutter, then enlarge bits of the negative in the darkroom and...

I couldn't help but think that Mr. Sewell had no understanding of the way someone like Saint Ansel or Edward Weston would work, pre-visualising the finished image.

True, most photography isn't an attempt at art, but neither is most painting. My wife re-emulsioned the dining room last week after a water leak. That wasn't art, either

Whiteymorange said:

Just a craft? All art should aspire to craftsmanship.

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You got it Whitey, but you have it backwards. Craftsmanship should aspire to art. I watched an old country trained stone mason create a stone wall that was a true work of art.

I have been a pretty good craftsman regarding photography. (Do something for 40+ years and you should get fairly good at it.) Since I joined this site, I am becoming more artistic in my photography. But I don't think I'll ever call myself an artist.

TheFlyingCamera said:

I saw the above (paraphrased) statement in another thread, and I didn't want to hijack that thread to begin a discussion of this topic, so here I am. I've heard the arguments many many times that defend the notion that photography is an art in the same way that painting and sculpture are. I'd like to hear someone who feels the opposite, that photography is just a craft, not an art, defend their position. I'll state for the record that I believe photography absolutely is an art. Certainly there is craft to it, in the sense that there is technique to master, and that technique can be qualitatively measured. Is there anyone out there who feels that photography not only begins, but ends, at technical craftsmanship? How does it do so? Why?

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If you are refering to my to my recent post about Rabbi Sinclair's work in the portfolio section, I wrote that "photography is a craft", not "Just"a craft, which I firmly believe, although it can approach art on a few rare occasions, a lot more rare than many photographers think.

benjiboy said:

If you are refering to my to my recent post about Rabbi Sinclair's work in the portfolio section, I wrote that "photography is a craft", not "Just"a craft, which I firmly believe, although it can approach art on a few rare occasions, a lot more rare than many photographers think.

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benjiboy

it depends on what art is and is not
and who is calling or not calling it art, doesn't it ?


john

benjiboy said:

If you are refering to my to my recent post about Rabbi Sinclair's work in the portfolio section, I wrote that "photography is a craft", not "Just"a craft, which I firmly believe, although it can approach art on a few rare occasions, a lot more rare than many photographers think.

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Benji-

Yes, I'm referring to your statement. I'd like to hear your opinion as to why you think that way.

ricksplace said:

You got it Whitey, but you have it backwards. Craftsmanship should aspire to art. I watched an old country trained stone mason create a stone wall that was a true work of art.

I have been a pretty good craftsman regarding photography. (Do something for 40+ years and you should get fairly good at it.) Since I joined this site, I am becoming more artistic in my photography. But I don't think I'll ever call myself an artist.

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I think I agree with Ricksplace. I've strived for years to produce good photographic records of what I've had in front of me. Only recently have I really tried to give the photographs some 'meaning'. Whether anyone regards them as art is their choice.

The photographic process is, unquestionably, governed entirely by physics and, to that end, is pure 'craft'. The interpretation of the scene or the treatment given to the image by the photographer (or even the printer) seems, to me, to be the point where craftsmanship can morph into artistry.

I just came to this thread, somewhat late... But here are some answerrs to the original question:
Some time ago I read an essay by Roger Scruton, a British philosopher, of why photography is not a "representational art" in the same way as painting is. His argument, very briefly: at the center of the photographic act is an automatism, or rather a mechanism. The photographer does not recreate or rebuild as the painter, but his recording is just like taking a fingerprint (my example).
Scruton then goes into considerations of taste, and he says, for instance, when you photograph a drunken tramp and cal the image "Bacchus", this would be just the same as if you point to the person and say "Bacchus!". Or when you see, for instances, a picture of Venice by Canaletto, you appreciate the image itself, how it was made, which colours were used, etc., but if you see a photograph of old London, you appreciate rather what is in this photograph, and you may feel some sweet melancholy because these houses are no more there, but it is the houses themselves as they have once been which you appreciate, not the photograph as such. Scruton also contents that a photographer is able to produce styles only in the crudest way.
There is another philosopher, Kenneth (?) Walton, who maintainsed that photography is just a viewing aid, as a telescope or microscope. (A counter-argument I read was that a photograph removes what it depicts out of time and space, unlike the other instruments, but that does not really quaslify for art either.
Another author, forgot his name, writing on Wittgenstein's remarks on aesthetics, noted that a photographer as only a limited control over the picture. If he, for instance, takes a picture of his family on the beach, frames it, places it on his mantlepiece and calls it "my family on the beach", there may be a lot of elements in the picture, garbage in the sand, other people or cars in the background, which the photographer did not intend to record, still they are there.
Finally, Roland Barthes in "camera lucida" remains vague on the issue, but states, for instance, that it was chemistry which led to the invention of photography, and not art. He also makes, like Scruton, very much a point that you see in a photograph the actual person, and this is what strikes, like an image "born as a slave", or one of a small boy taken decades before makes him wonderr what became of the boy. Also, his famous distinction between "punctum" (?) and "studio" (? must check whether I got the terms right) is built on this factuality of a photograph.
I hope this helps.

I would dispute Scruton's example of labeling the drunken tramp "Bacchus" as being in any way different from labeling a painting "Bacchus". A case in point would be Caravaggio's "Madonna of Loreto" - the model used for the Madonna was a well known prostitute. In the time of its creation, his use of a prostitute as the model for the Virgin Mary was extremely scandalous, so much so that we still remember it today. We can look at that painting and see the Madonna/Prostitute in the same image. Putting a label under the painting and inserting some symbols in the image does not change the fact that we are looking at a representation of a prostitute.

I would also dispute the assertions of the Wittgenstein commentator that a photographer has limited control. The photographer has as much or as little control over the content of his image as he/she chooses to exercise. If a photographer wants to take a photograph of his family on the beach, there may well be detritus and trash in the scene, people unknown to the photographer, and displeasing objects in the background. There is no law that says the photographer must take the photograph exactly as he finds the scene - if the trash is objectionable, he can remove it, or he can relocate his family to a different, clean part of the beach. If there are objectionable strangers in the background, he can wait until they move, or he can ask them to get out of the scene. In a studio, a photographer has absolute control over his subject - the studio is tabula rasa which the photographer fills with his imagination as he sees fit.

Even if photography is born of chemistry and industry, to claim that that origin de-legitimizes relative to other arts is to assume that they exist free of the bounds and necessities of chemistry and industry. Painting would not exist without chemistry - what are pigments but the residue of chemical reactions? What is paint but the combination of organic and inorganic compounds? DaVinci's Last Supper is a clear example of what happens when art is overtaken by a lack of chemical knowlege. Sculpture would not exist without industry - metal and stone do not spring from the earth pliable by human hands alone.

Art is what an artist makes using whatever tool he/she wants. Quality is a different question. Craftsmanship is a choice. No tool or technique is art unless someone uses it to express an aesthetic idea. Photography is not art and neither is singing writing drawing painting or sculpting unless someone uses them to express an aesthetic idea. A person can use anything. Grandma's cookies, the brewer's beer, the kid on the beach with a stick. All art.

Photography is photography. It doesn't have to be anything else.