Category: Photography as Art

Articles on the photographer as an artist

Wandering in the Fog

I worked on two photographs tonight that have been giving me trouble for the last week or so.  Both were shot in Zion NP.  The one I’ve been working the longest on was what I finished up on tonight.  Hopefully I have it.  We’ll know tomorrow morning.

My point in this post is I often get the feeling I’m wandering in the fog.  You can’t see where you’re going very well and you just stumble around.  You take a step, look around and decide where to go from there.  It’s a slow process.  I make a print.  It takes several minutes for it to come off the printer.  Then I look at it.  Often times it’s very disappointing, especially tonight.  Think about what’s wrong with it for a while, make the changes in PS and make another print.  It’s disappointing so think some more, fiddle in PS some more and make another print.  Hours go by.

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What Constitutes a Fine Art Photograph?

At shows I’m frequently asked the following questions:  “Do you use filters?”  “Do you enhance these photographs?”  “Are these colors real?”

 

The answer is simply, “Of course.”  But I often want to respond, “If these were paintings would you be asking me whether the colors are real?  Or would there be an assumption that as a painter I interpreted the scene before me and selected the colors that contributed to my artistic vision?”  This leads to another question.  “As an artist, is a photographer any less free to express her feeling by whatever means the medium allows,  Is a photographer expected to hold to a different standard than a painter, sculptor, poet, novelist or composer?”  So, “Of course” is the simple answer but there is oh so much more behind it.

 

A follow up comment I often make is something to the effect that there are many, many hours that go into each photograph to get it to express my artistic vision.  Sometimes there are as many as 30 or 40 hours often spread out over a period of months or even years.  If we snapped a picture and took it down to Costco for a print would it be fair to call it fine art?  Or, if it took a photographer any less time to created a fine art print that it did a painter to create a painting, would it be fair to call that fine art?

 

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