What is Photgraphy?

However any definition of fine art photography is merely to serve as a loose working notion of what might differentiate certain photography as art.

From its very origins, photography has contained an unresolved tension between the mechanical, scientific tool of the camera and the natural desire to use it for the creation of beautiful images.

Essentially, the term fine art photography is used to refer work created with such a desire in mind, to articulate an impression, a feeling about, or relationship with the world.

Galleries and museums, particularly those dedicated to modern art, have done much over the decades to ensure photography's spot amongst the other arts. But quite when, how and why it can be confidently categorised in this way remains an open, if fairly pointless, question.


I really don't think it's worth getting too exercised over the attempt to deliniate a mark between different categories of photography, and arrive at a fixed definition of fine art photography.


Is Photography Art?


Often people confuse what is the craft of photography with its artistic value. I have read many articles proposing that where a photographer is closely involved in the process of actually creating a physical image, leaving their mark at each stage - from selecting the exposure to adjusting tones in the darkroom - they can be more readily called an artist. The assumption being the more visible the photographer's hand, the less an image's value is attributable to a mechanical device.

But this seems to be fighting an uphill battle. You might as well paint over the photograph once it's developed or printed just to preserve its artistic integrity beyond any doubt! It's a view that led Pablo Picasso to remark:  

"Two of the most frustrated trades are dentists and photographers - dentists because they want to be doctors, and photographers because they want to be painters"