why is it that you think 99% of photography isn't considered an art form?

[Alan Edward Klein]

Come visit the Getty Center in Los Angeles. There is an entire level of one of the pavilions dedicated to photography and they regularly mount stunning shows. The research institute gallery also has frequent photography shows.

You're right. The Getty has a wonderful selection of photos - some huge and some tiny. Here's a snapshot I took of two snapshots in their gallery that the museum considers art. They were taken in 1929 by Walker Evans; quick snaps of the Brooklyn Bridge. Are they snaps; or art?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

When I was at Uni studying Art, I thought all the students in the photography program were there because they could not draw or paint. That view changed about a year after I graduated. The general public probably still thinks this way. It's common. Everyone has a cell phone. Painters are rare.
For fun, at the start of every photography class I teach, I ask my students to name one famous photographer. Crickets...
Next, I ask for s famous artist. The usual suspects are listed with ease.
By the end of my course, they can name a few photographers, have a better appreciation for photography as an artistic expression, and realise the power of the photographic image.

Andrew, Could it be that many photos start off with another purpose beside straight aesthetics? For example, the advertising pictures of Avedon. Also, photos are a relatively young art form compared to drawings and paintings. People haven't experienced them as an art form or didn't realize it was just that.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

When I was at Uni studying Art, I thought all the students in the photography program were there because they could not draw or paint. That view changed about a year after I graduated. The general public probably still thinks this way. It's common. Everyone has a cell phone. Painters are rare.
For fun, at the start of every photography class I teach, I ask my students to name one famous photographer. Crickets...
Next, I ask for s famous artist. The usual suspects are listed with ease.
By the end of my course, they can name a few photographers, have a better appreciation for photography as an artistic expression, and realise the power of the photographic image.

Why were your students who could draw and paint attracted to photography?

 

[removed account4]

You're right. The Getty has a wonderful selection of photos - some huge and some tiny. Here's a snapshot I took of two snapshots in their gallery that the museum considers art. They were taken in 1929 by Walker Evans; quick snaps of the Brooklyn Bridge. Are they snaps; or art?
View attachment 281933

Hi Alan,
Something to consider ... Walter Evans and others in the first 1/4 of the 20th century were using the camera to document the world around them, some to promote social change ( like Jacob Riis and Louis Hines ). He's one of the people whose shoulders we are all standing on ( and most people don't even know his name or his work ). Even if they are snapshots, they are pretty good and I'd call them "art". .. but I'm a sucker for between the wars documentary work. AND it just goes to show you can use a cheap Kodak vest pocket camera, like a lomo or holga of its time, to make photographs that are celebrated by curators.

John

 

[faberryman]

The “fine art” photography (photographer) (photographs) thing irks me. While I obviously don’t have an exhaustive knowledge of every well-known name, I can’t think of any highly accomplished photographers who call themselves that.

The people I know who call themselves fine art photographers are not famous. Some of them are very accomplished photographers, in the sense that they are highly trained or skilled; others less so. Certainly calling yourself a fine art photographer doesn't make your photography any better, but you do avoid the inevitable question of do you do weddings. My view is that you can call yourself whatever you want.

 

[removed account4]

but you do avoid the inevitable question of do you do weddings

IDK. I know someone who I believe calls herself a fine art photographer, I believe she got a mccarthur fellowship, she is in magnum maybe agency vu and I think might do weddings ... its not all or none.. and I know a fine art film maker who also did weddings...

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Hi Alan,
Something to consider ... Walter Evans and others in the first 1/4 of the 20th century were using the camera to document the world around them, some to promote social change ( like Jacob Riis and Louis Hines ). He's one of the people whose shoulders we are all standing on ( and most people don't even know his name or his work ). Even if they are snapshots, they are pretty good and I'd call them "art". .. but I'm a sucker for between the wars documentary work. AND it just goes to show you can use a cheap Kodak vest pocket camera, like a lomo or holga of its time, to make photographs that are celebrated by curators.

John

Doesn't it seem that all 80 year old pictures showing old cars, stuffy clothing, and other old things just seem so artistic? I'm sure it will be the same 80 years from now. What really is freaky is when they colorize century old videos of street action like in the lower east side of NYC.
Restored Footage Reveals New York City in 1911 | NowThis - Bing video

 

[faberryman]

Doesn't it seem that all 80 year old pictures showing old cars, stuffy clothing, and other old things just seem so artistic? I'm sure it will be the same 80 years from now.

Certainly not all. Maybe some. Probably just a few. Most of the ones I have seen just look historic. Except Atget.

I saw a statistic that 1000 photographs are uploaded to Instagram every second. I doubt many of them will be deemed artistic in 80 years. Maybe some. Probably just a few. The problem is that no one is going to sort through the 50 billion and counting photographs on Instagram to find them.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The people I know who call themselves fine art photographers are not famous. Some of them are very accomplished photographers, in the sense that they are highly trained or skilled; others less so. Certainly calling yourself a fine art photographer doesn't make your photography any better, but you do avoid the inevitable question of do you do weddings.

Why not weddings?

I was trained as an electronic technician repairing computers and designing digital based building automation systems. When ever I visited family, they were always asking me to fix their TV's which I knew nothing about.

 

[removed account4]

Doesn't it seem that all 80 year old pictures showing old cars, stuffy clothing, and other old things just seem so artistic? I'm sure it will be the same 80 years from now. What really is freaky is when the colorize century old videos of street action like in the lower east side of NYC.
Restored Footage Reveals New York City in 1911 | NowThis - Bing video

I know what you mean .. that said Walker Even's work was considered the cream of the crop when he made those photographs back in the day. he was well known enough that he worked for Roy Stryker at the FSA ...

 

[faberryman]

Why not weddings?

Because they don't do weddings. It is similar to a painter calling himself an artist so people don't ask him to stop by and give them a quote for painting their house. Or a doctor calling himself a pediatrician so people don't ask him if he does knee replacements.

I was trained as an electronic technician repairing computers and designing digital based building automation systems. When ever I visited family, they were always asking me to fix their TV's which I knew nothing about.

I guess I could say I was trained as a radio and television repairman. When I was in high school, I took a night course in radio and television repair down at the vocational school with a bunch of old geezers who smoked like chimneys. They were there hoping to find a lucrative career which would support their five pack a day habit. Anyway, it was mostly about replacing bad tubes. If you didn't have a tube tester, you just replaced tubes until you found the one that was bad. Things have not changed a lot. Now radio and television repairmen just replace circuit boards until they find the one that is bad. Given the cost of replacement circuit boards, most people just buy a new TV, and radio and television repairmen have an active side business in carting broken TVs down to the dump.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

The "Art is in the eye of the beholder" argument is problematic, apart from it's similarity to that infamous US Supreme Court justice's definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it." Art does need to be beheld, but the beholding is not sufficient of itself.

Somewhere in a population of 8 billion are some who would consider a cow flop a work of art. Probably enough to get together, form a society and publish a magazine.

That doesn't make a cow flop a work of art. It's just a cow flop some find attractive.

If "Art is what I say it is" then everything is art to somebody. If we hold to a PC dictum and respect everyone's art and call it such then everything is art and the term loses meaning.

To get back to the OP's question: Why is it that some curators hold that photography is not art? Might the reason simply be "Because they say it isn't," and we leave it at that.

"IS" - "ISN'T" - "IS" - "ISN'T" - "IS" - "ISN'T- "IS" - "ISN'T"- "IS" - "ISN'T"- "IS" - "ISN'T"- "IS" - "ISN'T"- "IS" - "ISN'T" - "YO MAMA" - ...

 

[Vaughn]

Why not weddings?

I was trained as an electronic technician repairing computers and designing digital based building automation systems. When ever I visited family, they were always asking me to fix their TV's which I knew nothing about.

Good one, Alan! Now be asked to repair the TV in the next 10 minutes because the family has just one chance to see a family member on Let's Make a Deal! and they are all counting on you for this important event and watching every move you make...and to make it real, no dinner and no bed for you if you blow it. That's photographing a wedding to me!

 

[BradS]

The "Art is in the eye of the beholder" argument is problematic .... Art does need to be beheld, but the beholding is not sufficient of itself. ...

This just leaves me begging, "Why"?
It may be problematic is some academic sense but the notion that a photograph is not art if the photographer's intent was other than to make art conflicts with experience. Academia cannot dictate what an individual feels and thinks.

 

[Vaughn]

"Art is what I say it is" then everything is art to somebody. If we hold to a PC dictum and respect everyone's art and call it such then everything is art and the term loses meaning.

No...it just means there is good art and bad art. Art that connects with the viewer and art that does not. "Losing its meaning" is an impossibility...it has to find it first.

 

[faberryman]

Academia cannot dictate what an individual feels and thinks.

Right, that's a job best left to marketing departments.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

...a cheap Kodak vest pocket camera, like a lomo or holga of its time...

Now them's fight'n words.

I don't know which version of the Vest Pocket Kodak Evans used - the VPK encompassed a wide range of cameras. They were really good cameras, usually with f6.8 anastigmats or rectilinears. Even the cheapest model came with an achromat meniscus with the stop in front of the lens where it belonged. OK, the three speeds of a Kodak "Ball Bearing" shutter were wishful thinking but many came with better.

The 3-speed rectilinear one I had as a youth disappeared into the mists of time (probably the time my Mother "cleaned up that mess in the basement" when I was at Uni).

 

[removed account4]

Now them's fight'n words.

haha
yea I know they were good cameras, I didn't mean a slight, I figure from the ones I have played with they were you know, like a box camera ..
simple, easy to use and capable of taking great photographs like any camera, and if you are dead
and kind of famous with your work at the Getty, your vest camera's images can even be matted and framed with a tag next to it

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Walker Evans' early work with a VPK never ceases to amaze. What an eye. Very hungry, indeed.

Photography is seeing - the camera is there to prove you saw.

 

[warden]

Photography is seeing - the camera is there to prove you saw.

I'm gonna steal that.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Why were your students who could draw and paint attracted to photography?

No, I said I thought that the students enrolled in the photography program were there because they couldn't draw or paint. I was busy learning real art like drawing painting, and printmaking. My view was quite narrow then as far as photography as an art form.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Andrew, Could it be that many photos start off with another purpose beside straight aesthetics? For example, the advertising pictures of Avedon. Also, photos are a relatively young art form compared to drawings and paintings. People haven't experienced them as an art form or didn't realize it was just that.

Could be. People think of it more as a recording medium. Still do.

 

[Arthurwg]

How does the viewer know the intention of the photographer? Would a current viewer know it was originally taken 80 years ago as a snapshot to record an event? I don't think so. So as long as the piece does something emotionally to the viewer, it's art. We photographers are allowed to get lucky you know.

"Intention" has nothing to do with it. Most things intended as art are failures.

 

[Arthurwg]

It's really very simple and I'll say it again: Art is the idea coupled with a sensibility. Great ideas coupled with a profound sensibility make great art.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

"Intention" has nothing to do with it. Most things intended as art are failures.

Absolutely.

Intention alone is not sufficient. Creation alone is not sufficient. Apprehension alone is not sufficient.

You need all three.

And then there is http://museumofbadart.org/