Photography as Art

Just curious: at what level of scholarship is this aimed?

I'm guessing this is an undergraduate essay. If I were marking it as such, I'd be strongly critical of the lack of hypothesis and supporting argument: it seems to be just a string of vaguely related observations. If you want an idea to work with, why not photography vs photographies: is it legitimate to sweep tourist snapshots, baby photos, astrophotography and Steiglitz into the same category for discussion? That would leave you the chance to discuss how the accessibility of photography influences its valuation as art. After all, most art gallery visitors own a camera, but very few paint.

And I think it should be Il Papa, not La Papa :-)

I'm a senior in high school. It's the first installment of a three part English assignment. First, we must choose an issue and take a stance. That yeilds position paper number one. Second is to take the opposite position on the same issue. Third is an actual research paper. The actual research paper does not have to be derived from the position papers, but it can be. I've been toying with the idea of changing scope slightly and discussion digital vs. film photography in the research paper.

And I am, as you pointed out, coming up against the problem of having confronted too broad a topic. It's a little large to confront in a 3-5 page discussion.

I took it to be either a high school or junior college assignment and paper, and to adequately address the cultural preceptions of such a vast and pervasive subject is an overreaching task for anyone. The history of photography is dense, complex, and daunting, and I commend the writer on his efforts. Given that first photo was taken (now) in 1825, 177 years of progress and its impact on society is difficult to express briefly, and could easily make up a couple of PhD theses. But stay the course, young man, call 'em as you see 'em. Good luck.

Take a look at a book called Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present edited by Vicki Goldberg. University of New Mexico Press, 1981. There are some interesting historical readings in there concerning your subject which were written during photography's infancy. Look at the writings by Baudelaire, Ruskin and Eastlake in particular.

Cheers.

I would agree that you should scope your thesis more narrowly. Moreover, I think you touch on three seperate issues with your essay:
- Is photography a valid artistic form?
- Is photography generally considered to be a valid artistic form?
- What makes a photograph art?

All three issues are connected, but they're seperate questions. In particular, beware the distinction between the first two; they are easy to confuse.

I would strongly suggest you read On Photography by Susan Sontag. She spent 200 pages addressing much the same questions you're considering. It is certainly the most widely known critical look at photography as art. I'm not that fond of it; I would argue that it suffers from the same flaw that Graham mentions in your statement -- a collection of observations suffering from a lack of an hypothesis. However, any essay on the subject that doesn't at least mention Sontag's essays would seem to be suffering from a lack of research.

You've taken on an awfully ambitious subject for a high school senior. There are subtle and difficult problems that, on the one hand, are hard to gloss over but, on the other hand, can't be adequately addressed by anything short of a doctoral thesis. For instance:

Art is difficult to define.. . .

And yet define it you must or you have no research paper. Also . . .

However art is defined cultural significance is a common denominator. Whether the object in question is a Grecian vase or an abstract sculpture it reflects its culture’s mores, values, and realities. In this light photography’s artistic validity is unquestionable. Nothing better captures modern values.

As an artist and photographer I suggest that the above comment cuts to the heart of the most difficult question in art today. There is no doubt that what you say was true for many past cultures. Art of the Italian Renaissance was deeply integrated into the culture. The artists that we recognize today as the greatest of that time (Michelangelo, da Vinci, Botticelli, Donatello, etc) were creating art which was culturally important in their own time. They were houshold names and were creating art routinely seen in public places and cathedrals. Their art was important in promoting themes and stories for the Church and in immortalizing prominent figures of the day such as the Medici's. Lesser and work-a-day artists of the period were all studying and copying their techniques, styles, and ideas. So there is no question that traditionally artists were an important part of the larger culture.

How many major contemporary artists today play an important cultural role? How many people today have even HEARD of Damien Hirst or Martin Creed? The striking thing about art in modern times is the extent to which "great" artists have become an irrelevancy to the larger culture. They create art which is appreciated by a small clique of academicians and specialists but which is unknown or incomprehensible to the man in the street.

I suggest that today commercial art is the type of art most attuned to our culture and most important in shaping its visual (and musical) vocabulary. Commercially successful pop music is used in advertising, or finds its way back into other artists' experessions. Last night I attended an outstanding performance by Momix (dance/acrobatics/human sculpture) with background music that included the Talking Heads' "Burning Down the House", and a techno band's cover of George Harrison's "Within You Without You". General Motors uses Bob Segar's "Like a Rock", and Heinz uses Carly Simon's "Anticipation" in their ads.

Contemporary photographers that "everyone" knows are ones associated with advertising and mass-market publishing: Annie Liebowitz, say, or Bruce Weber. The pure "art" photographers of today are seldom known outside of a small clique of photography snobs such as us here, and probably not many of us.

The greatest artists of the day used to have their work displayed in cathedrals and public squares where it would be seen by the high and the low, the washed and the unwashed, the elite and the common. Today our "public square" is the TV and magazine advertisment. Is it art? I think it is, but the art snobs say "no". It's a question you have to answer before you can answer any others.

Your writing style is excellent, and some of the observations are very perceptive and thought-provoking. One culture's art object is another's appliance. What a great line!

The biggest problems with your draft have been mentioned: (1) the topic is too broad for a 3 to 5 page paper; (2) the structure of the essay is weak. Is it a narrative of the history of photography as art? Is it an argument for a thesis? Or is it something else?

From your preamble, I take it that you are presenting an argument that photography is an art. With arguments, the best structure is usually the most straight-forward. Introduce the issue/question. Unless it is obvious explain why it is an issue, and (briefly) why it is interesting and important. State your position. Present your arguments. If you have time, state and knock down some of the possible objections, without making the objections into straw men. Restate your position.

The strength of your writing style (sentence structure, word choice) and some of your sparkling observations will carry you a long way, but if you can give some more attention to creating a coherent overall structure, and make each paragraph fit into that structure, you will really have a college-level effort.

"Whether the object in question is a Grecian vase or an abstract sculpture it reflects its culture’s mores, values, and realities".

Or does it reflect the artist's interpretation of or commentary on a culture's mores, values and realities?

Contemporary photographers that "everyone" knows are ones associated with advertising and mass-market publishing: Annie Liebowitz, say, or Bruce Weber. The pure "art" photographers of today are seldom known outside of a small clique of photography snobs such as us here, and probably not many of us.

The greatest artists of the day used to have their work displayed in cathedrals and public squares where it would be seen by the high and the low, the washed and the unwashed, the elite and the common. Today our "public square" is the TV and magazine advertisment. Is it art? I think it is, but the art snobs say "no". It's a question you have to answer before you can answer any others.

If you decide to pursue the "commercial artists and photographers are today's Michaelangelos and Raphaels and Botticellis, bringing art to the masses" argument in support of "photograpy is art", then you would be remiss if you didn't mention Warhol. He made commercial art just that, art. He paved the way for the commercial/graphic artists and photographers of today to be able to be accepted as artists and not just technicians. Yes, anyone can learn to operate a camera or computer software, but it takes vision and creativity and an artist's eye to make art with these tools. After all, the camera and the computer are an artist's tools as well, no different from the paintbrush or the chisel. It's how one uses these tools to create their vision that make someone an artist and the product of their efforts, art.

Just because the camera makes it "easier" to produce a perfect copy of a real image than a paintbrush does does not mean that it isn't art. There is this long held view that in order for someting to be art there has to be some kind of suffering or struggle. I guess there is this idea that the struggle of the artist to produce a certain image is what separated him from the "average" person, who couldn't possibly produce something similar, of course! I am not saying that anyone could carve marble like Michaelangelo if they just tried hard enough, but I think the act of painting or sculpting or whatever was only made to seem harder than it actually is. Maybe because the process involved in creating "art" was not revealed to clients or patrons, only the final awe-inspriting work of art. Perhaps this was done to preserve the mystique of art, or maybe just to give job security to artists! Who knows! But having been trained in art, I have to admit that any wide-eyed wonder I had about certain paintings or prints was brought down a notch because I have learned the technique used to achieve the awesome effects. I am still awed by the image I see, but less so by how it was achieved. You see, it turns out the struggle that people use to define something as art is not a struggle with the process of making art, but with the process of creating an artistic vision... not the "how" but the "what" and the "why". However, most still connect at least part of the struggle with the "how", leading them to NOT define photography as art because the "how" is "easy".

With the camera, people were at first amazed by the whole process of photography because they were not knowledgable of the process. However, they quickly learned how the little box worked its magic and this part of photography lost its mystique. They too were able to create images just like the photographers if they followed all the right steps and pushed all the right buttons. Because photography is faster than painting and because anyone can follow directions and push buttons, photography was picked up by the masses. This wide acceptance of and ability to do photography separated it from all the other art forms. The only way for other forms of art to survive was to declare photography to NOT be art. If you want art, commission a painting. If you want a documentary image, take a photograph.

Only recently has photography come to be accepted as art. Graphic/commercial arts and art created with digital media is still struggling to be accepted. I spent my entire 3 years as an art major in college fighting for a degree program in digital media. One was created in time for myself and a few others to graduate with a degree in digital media in 2001. We had to prove to all the department heads how digital art had a place as art alongside painting and sculpture and printmaking. We brought digital methods to engraving and lithography, collaged paintings and photographs with Photoshop artistry, and made digital prints and digital movies. Then our sponsoring faculty member reminded the other art faculty about their ideas about photography 50 years ago and we finally persuaded everyone that just because our process was eased by the computer, our ideas and artistic vision were no less than those of the painting or scuplture majors. (Photographers were making the same argument 50 years ago, and surprisingly the photo teacher also had to be convinced about the future of digital art. My how we forget!)

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now. You can see that, as a photographer and graphic artists, I am doubly passionate about having my work accepted as art! Hope my diatribe helps you with ideas for your argument!

I teach composition and creative writing at a state university, and I have also written on the subject of photography, although neither of those necessarily qualifies me to respond to this question. For the assignment, though, I would ask first 'Are you to prepare a research paper (an assemblage of things other people have said), or are you to become a primary source for knowledge, define an issue, present an argument incorporating both sides, and posit an original solution based upon your own research and ideas?' Since you are writing three to five pages, I'll assume that you are creating an assemblage. In that case, and due to the length constraints, I would recommend that you narrow your topic a bit since you seem to cover everything from chemistry, physics, culture, art history, and truth (a vague concept at best). Perhaps you might concentrate on a particular aspect, focus your discussion on the cultural impact on Americans in general or perhaps even your generation. The events of September 11 are rife with possibilities concerning truth, morality, ethics, or technology. Concerning truth, a photographer, and the resulting photograph, both relay truth and untruth with regards to the scene portrayed. Choices made by the photographer with regards to the technical aspects of exposure and film choice, as well as framing or cropping manifests a discourse in subjectivity and veracity; this is a voluminous discussion in and of itself. I think that if you narrow yourself sufficiently you may find that, even then, three to five pages are unrealistic. Since you do not ask for comment on your writing style or technique I will refrain from comment.

This is a debate with a long history. One which repeats itself more often than most, partly I think because photography has a persistent inferiority complex, and partly because nobody reads any more.

The pictorialists were not so bad. OK, so a lot of their pictures are sentimental, but so were contemporary paintings, sculptures, novels and symphonies. In fact, if you want to dig a little deeper than the Time Life series, you could do a lot worse than investigate the debate that occured when, say, Julia Margaret Cameron first started showing her portraits and tableux.

The single best piece of writing I have read on photography was a New York Review piece on Cameron by Janet Malcolm. You can find an abstract and reference here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=602

She ignores the stale issue of whether photography is art, and instead concentrates on *why* it is art, and what makes photography unique compared to other arts. Worth reading.

With respect to the 19th century comments on the status of photography. I think you'll find that those comments all came from painters, and did not reflect the general attitude of the public and the more liberal thinkers of the time. You shouldn't confuse painting with art in general, or these days, with art at all.<br>One of the most famous quotes from the 19th C, often attributed to the academy painter Delacroix is: "From today, painting is dead", and I think that time has proven those words prophetic.<p>There were many 19th C artists who crossed over from painting to photography, and many photographers striving (I think misguidedly) to emulate the neo-classical painting of the period. David Octavius Hill, H.P.Robinson and Oscar Reijlander spring to mind.<p>From its very outset, photography strived to be an artistic medium. One only has to look at Fox Talbot's work "The pencil of Nature" to realise that the ambition was acheived fairly early on. That small book of exquisite pictures has rarely been equalled since.<p>Forget the pundits, whose names and opinions have already dissolved into history, and look at the amazing body of work that photographers have bequeathed to us over the last 160 years. Let that speak for itself.<br>The cultural perception of photography cannot be separated from its effect on society, and I believe that it was the fear and jealousy of photography's enormous impact that provoked derogatory comments from certain so-called art experts, until comparatively recent times.

Hey, just wanted to say that I appriciate the responses. They have been helpful.

What I'm planning now is to scrap this paper line and focus a bit more. I'll redo the two position papers on digital vs. film photography. Arguing the merits of each allows me to address the art issue tangentally. Ultimately they'll be more focused papers. Although maybe after I get the first two positions done I'll decide to do the actual research paper on supersymmetry, you never know.

Thanks again for the input, I'll try to post some more directed responses later.

Is it just me or have high school assignments gotten more complex in the last 10 to 20 years???