A Photography forum. PhotoBanter.com

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » PhotoBanter.com forum » General Photography » Film & Labs
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Is photography art?



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #11  
Old September 27th 03, 10:22 PM
William Graham
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Is photography art?


NJH wrote in message
news

"William Graham" wrote in message
news:Kb5db.437471$cF.139775@rwcrnsc53...

NJH wrote in message
...

"William Graham" wrote in message
news:b4Ocb.580196$Ho3.109288@sccrnsc03...

NJH wrote in message
...

"William Graham" wrote in message
et...

John Stafford wrote in message
...
William Graham wrote:

I spent my working life
operating a very complicated high energy physics research

machine.
I
was
part of a crew of 15 or 20 people who did this around the

clock
for
a
living. No two of us operated the machine the same way, with

the
same
finesse and ultimate results. It was a complex, and

primarily
decision
making process. There is no question in my mind as to its

being
an
art.

Oh fer Gawd's sake... It's not up to you whether it was Art.

So
it
was
complex! Big deal! Is everything that is complex and done in a
unique,
demanding way Art? I think not! Get over it.

Anything that two people do differently, and it can be said that

one
does
it
better than the other, is art. [ . . . ]

What utter gibberish.

If you keep pounding the word "art" into some sort of shapeless

mush
such
that it no longer has any meaning, what word will you invent to

mean
what
"art" used to mean? Or are you so insensible to the concept of

real
art
that
you just don't think it's important to have a word for it?

Neil


Answer the question I posed above about the end product being the

lone
consideration in the definition, or is the process important.......

The process is important.


Also the
question about the four or five common disciplines....(Painting,
sculpture,
music, dance, and literature) Does art have to be restricted to

these
five?

No.

Neil


Ah....Then where do you draw the line? -


I don't draw any line.


Operating a high-energy physics
machine can't be art, in your opinion,


I've said this repeatedly: ANY activity requiring a modicum of skill may

be
an art in some sense, but not in the sense of fine art.


but art can stray from the above
mentioned five disciplines......So what makes any particular activity

art,
in your opinion?


Art in any sense at all, or fine art?

Neil


OK....I'll bite....fine art, if you insist. Somewhere, presumably at some
level of difficulty to learn, you separate fine art from the other arts, or
crafts, if you prefer......I'd just like to know where you draw the line.
How difficult does the medium have to be to learn, before you will give it
the distinction of, "fine art"?
There are people who, (for example) build 1/100 scale ships like the Queen
Mary out of toothpicks......Not glued together, mind you....But interlocked
together by carving little hooks on the ends, or sides.....Is this fine art?
Or, how about Iranian families who spend a whole year weaving one carpet,
which they sell for several thousand dollars, (amounting to their annual
income). Or the mathematician at Duke who spent over 5 years proving that it
only takes 4 colors to color any map in existence. (there can exist no
arrangement of country borders that require more than 4 colors to separate
on a map) And there are many other examples of projects/disciplines that
take years and years of practice and study to learn. Can you quantify the
difficulty of the medium that is required before you are willing to give it
the distinction of, "a fine art"?


  #12  
Old September 28th 03, 03:06 PM
NJH
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Is photography art?


"William Graham" wrote in message
news:Ocndb.600021$YN5.443639@sccrnsc01...

NJH wrote in message
news

"William Graham" wrote in message
news:Kb5db.437471$cF.139775@rwcrnsc53...

NJH wrote in message
...

"William Graham" wrote in message
news:b4Ocb.580196$Ho3.109288@sccrnsc03...

NJH wrote in message
...

"William Graham" wrote in message
et...

John Stafford wrote in message
...
William Graham wrote:

I spent my working life
operating a very complicated high energy physics research
machine.
I
was
part of a crew of 15 or 20 people who did this around the

clock
for
a
living. No two of us operated the machine the same way,

with
the
same
finesse and ultimate results. It was a complex, and

primarily
decision
making process. There is no question in my mind as to its

being
an
art.

Oh fer Gawd's sake... It's not up to you whether it was Art.

So
it
was
complex! Big deal! Is everything that is complex and done in

a
unique,
demanding way Art? I think not! Get over it.

Anything that two people do differently, and it can be said

that
one
does
it
better than the other, is art. [ . . . ]

What utter gibberish.

If you keep pounding the word "art" into some sort of shapeless

mush
such
that it no longer has any meaning, what word will you invent to

mean
what
"art" used to mean? Or are you so insensible to the concept of

real
art
that
you just don't think it's important to have a word for it?

Neil


Answer the question I posed above about the end product being the

lone
consideration in the definition, or is the process

important.......

The process is important.


Also the
question about the four or five common disciplines....(Painting,
sculpture,
music, dance, and literature) Does art have to be restricted to

these
five?

No.

Neil


Ah....Then where do you draw the line? -


I don't draw any line.


Operating a high-energy physics
machine can't be art, in your opinion,


I've said this repeatedly: ANY activity requiring a modicum of skill may

be
an art in some sense, but not in the sense of fine art.


but art can stray from the above
mentioned five disciplines......So what makes any particular activity

art,
in your opinion?


Art in any sense at all, or fine art?

Neil


OK....I'll bite....fine art, if you insist. Somewhere, presumably at some
level of difficulty to learn, you separate fine art from the other arts,

or
crafts, if you prefer......I'd just like to know where you draw the line.
How difficult does the medium have to be to learn, before you will give it
the distinction of, "fine art"?
There are people who, (for example) build 1/100 scale ships like the Queen
Mary out of toothpicks......Not glued together, mind you....But

interlocked
together by carving little hooks on the ends, or sides.....Is this fine

art?
Or, how about Iranian families who spend a whole year weaving one carpet,
which they sell for several thousand dollars, (amounting to their annual
income). Or the mathematician at Duke who spent over 5 years proving that

it
only takes 4 colors to color any map in existence. (there can exist no
arrangement of country borders that require more than 4 colors to separate
on a map) And there are many other examples of projects/disciplines that
take years and years of practice and study to learn. Can you quantify the
difficulty of the medium that is required before you are willing to give

it
the distinction of, "a fine art"?


The fine arts as far as I'm concerned are pretty much limited to the
traditional ones: painting, drawing, sculpture and related procedures as far
as image-producing stuff is concerned.

Cinematography can surely be an art, and a very important one, but I can't
see it as a fine art.

"Art photography" makes pretensions to being a fine art and to some degree
is accepted as such, which makes its categorization more difficult. But
Westons and Adamses will never be regarded as Rembrandts and Michelangelos,
and will never even come close.

Other photos, including lovely images of sunsets, pretty flowers, etc. that
are sometimes presented as "art" by the people who took them, are not art,
fine or otherwise.

Neil



  #13  
Old September 28th 03, 03:43 PM
Constantinople
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Is photography art?

"NJH" wrote in
m:

"Art photography" makes pretensions to being a fine art and to some
degree is accepted as such, which makes its categorization more
difficult. But Westons and Adamses will never be regarded as
Rembrandts and Michelangelos, and will never even come close.


I avoid the use of the art/not art categorization and I don't find the
concept of "fine" art to help matters, but I would agree with you on this
point: that Rembrandt and Michelangelo achieved more, and are justly more
famous. And the reason a photographer doing straight photography like Ansel
Adams, even with great craft and care (the zone system), cannot achieve as
much, is that they do not have the same degree of control over their medium
- specifically, the point-by-point control exercised by a painter with his
brush and a sculptor with his chisel.

At the same time, this very limitation is what makes photography
worthwhile. Not because it lets us be lazy. But because a photograph is a
mechanical reproduction rather than a point-by-point-painted (or chiselled)
work. Its mechanization is what limits the photographer's control. (The
photographer can, of course, choose to exercise point by point control, but
the more control he exercises the less we can trust the image as "a
photograph".) This same mechanization is what makes the image "a
photograph", and we value photographs over paintings in certain contexts,
because their mechanization makes them a more direct, unfiltered impression
of reality. History, at least in my own mind, is divided into two periods:
those times before photography, and those times after photography. We in a
sense can really see how things were in any period that had photography;
but we can only infer, from paintings, how things were in pre-photographic
times. I have in a sense looked upon Lincoln with my own eyes, because I
saw his photograph; but I have never seen Washington, because I have seen
only painted impressions of him.

  #14  
Old September 29th 03, 12:37 AM
William Graham
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Is photography art?


NJH wrote in message
m...

"William Graham" wrote in message
news:Ocndb.600021$YN5.443639@sccrnsc01...

NJH wrote in message
news

"William Graham" wrote in message
news:Kb5db.437471$cF.139775@rwcrnsc53...

NJH wrote in message
...

"William Graham" wrote in message
news:b4Ocb.580196$Ho3.109288@sccrnsc03...

NJH wrote in message
...

"William Graham" wrote in message
et...

John Stafford wrote in message
...
William Graham wrote:

I spent my working life
operating a very complicated high energy physics

research
machine.
I
was
part of a crew of 15 or 20 people who did this around

the
clock
for
a
living. No two of us operated the machine the same way,

with
the
same
finesse and ultimate results. It was a complex, and

primarily
decision
making process. There is no question in my mind as to

its
being
an
art.

Oh fer Gawd's sake... It's not up to you whether it was

Art.
So
it
was
complex! Big deal! Is everything that is complex and done

in
a
unique,
demanding way Art? I think not! Get over it.

Anything that two people do differently, and it can be said

that
one
does
it
better than the other, is art. [ . . . ]

What utter gibberish.

If you keep pounding the word "art" into some sort of

shapeless
mush
such
that it no longer has any meaning, what word will you invent

to
mean
what
"art" used to mean? Or are you so insensible to the concept of

real
art
that
you just don't think it's important to have a word for it?

Neil


Answer the question I posed above about the end product being

the
lone
consideration in the definition, or is the process

important.......

The process is important.


Also the
question about the four or five common disciplines....(Painting,
sculpture,
music, dance, and literature) Does art have to be restricted to

these
five?

No.

Neil


Ah....Then where do you draw the line? -

I don't draw any line.


Operating a high-energy physics
machine can't be art, in your opinion,

I've said this repeatedly: ANY activity requiring a modicum of skill

may
be
an art in some sense, but not in the sense of fine art.


but art can stray from the above
mentioned five disciplines......So what makes any particular

activity
art,
in your opinion?

Art in any sense at all, or fine art?

Neil


OK....I'll bite....fine art, if you insist. Somewhere, presumably at

some
level of difficulty to learn, you separate fine art from the other arts,

or
crafts, if you prefer......I'd just like to know where you draw the

line.
How difficult does the medium have to be to learn, before you will give

it
the distinction of, "fine art"?
There are people who, (for example) build 1/100 scale ships like the

Queen
Mary out of toothpicks......Not glued together, mind you....But

interlocked
together by carving little hooks on the ends, or sides.....Is this fine

art?
Or, how about Iranian families who spend a whole year weaving one

carpet,
which they sell for several thousand dollars, (amounting to their annual
income). Or the mathematician at Duke who spent over 5 years proving

that
it
only takes 4 colors to color any map in existence. (there can exist no
arrangement of country borders that require more than 4 colors to

separate
on a map) And there are many other examples of projects/disciplines that
take years and years of practice and study to learn. Can you quantify

the
difficulty of the medium that is required before you are willing to give

it
the distinction of, "a fine art"?


The fine arts as far as I'm concerned are pretty much limited to the
traditional ones: painting, drawing, sculpture and related procedures as

far
as image-producing stuff is concerned.

Cinematography can surely be an art, and a very important one, but I can't
see it as a fine art.

"Art photography" makes pretensions to being a fine art and to some degree
is accepted as such, which makes its categorization more difficult. But
Westons and Adamses will never be regarded as Rembrandts and

Michelangelos,
and will never even come close.

Other photos, including lovely images of sunsets, pretty flowers, etc.

that
are sometimes presented as "art" by the people who took them, are not art,
fine or otherwise.

Neil

Well, then. at best, you have to admit that the definition is,
"fuzzy"......As a mathematician (my degree) I tend to think in
absolutes....I don't like fuzzy definitions, although I have to admit that
they exist....But I always try to bring any discussion to its obvious
extremes.....Sort of, (in mathematical terms) investigate the end points, or
inflections of the equation.....I instinctively reject the idea that there
are only five fine arts, for example......I think that the neurosurgeon that
you mentioned above, will sometimes create wonderful artistic work inside of
the heads of some of his patients.....It's just a pity that we can't see it,
or know about it, because we weren't there to see it done, and/or haven't
got the capacity to understand it if we were......I guess what I am trying
to say is that the world is too complex a place to be able to pin the
definition of "fine art" on only 5 or 6 disciplines......


  #15  
Old September 29th 03, 12:42 AM
William Graham
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Is photography art?


Constantinople wrote in message
...
"NJH" wrote in
m:

"Art photography" makes pretensions to being a fine art and to some
degree is accepted as such, which makes its categorization more
difficult. But Westons and Adamses will never be regarded as
Rembrandts and Michelangelos, and will never even come close.


I avoid the use of the art/not art categorization and I don't find the
concept of "fine" art to help matters, but I would agree with you on this
point: that Rembrandt and Michelangelo achieved more, and are justly more
famous. And the reason a photographer doing straight photography like

Ansel
Adams, even with great craft and care (the zone system), cannot achieve as
much, is that they do not have the same degree of control over their

medium
- specifically, the point-by-point control exercised by a painter with his
brush and a sculptor with his chisel.

At the same time, this very limitation is what makes photography
worthwhile. Not because it lets us be lazy. But because a photograph is a
mechanical reproduction rather than a point-by-point-painted (or

chiselled)
work. Its mechanization is what limits the photographer's control. (The
photographer can, of course, choose to exercise point by point control,

but
the more control he exercises the less we can trust the image as "a
photograph".) This same mechanization is what makes the image "a
photograph", and we value photographs over paintings in certain contexts,
because their mechanization makes them a more direct, unfiltered

impression
of reality. History, at least in my own mind, is divided into two periods:
those times before photography, and those times after photography. We in a
sense can really see how things were in any period that had photography;
but we can only infer, from paintings, how things were in pre-photographic
times. I have in a sense looked upon Lincoln with my own eyes, because I
saw his photograph; but I have never seen Washington, because I have seen
only painted impressions of him.

This is what makes painters like Van Eyke so valuable....The guy painted
like a camera, so you can really see what people and things looked like back
in those days....(1600's)


  #16  
Old September 29th 03, 05:00 PM
jjs
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Is photography art?

"William Graham" wrote in message
news:Kb5db.437471$cF.139775@rwcrnsc53...
Ah....Then where do you draw the line? - Operating a high-energy physics
machine can't be art, in your opinion, but art can stray from the above
mentioned five disciplines......So what makes any particular activity art,
in your opinion?


You can express anything you like and call it art, but whether is is, in
fact art will be decided by historians, society, the marketplace of ideas.



  #17  
Old September 29th 03, 08:13 PM
Raymond Kasprzak
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Is photography art?


"jjs" wrote in message
...
"William Graham" wrote in message
news:Kb5db.437471$cF.139775@rwcrnsc53...
Ah....Then where do you draw the line? - Operating a high-energy physics
machine can't be art, in your opinion, but art can stray from the above
mentioned five disciplines......So what makes any particular activity

art,
in your opinion?


You can express anything you like and call it art, but whether is is, in
fact art will be decided by historians, society, the marketplace of ideas.




You can debate this topic forever but the Encyclopedia Brittanica does
consider photography an art. Here is the link:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article...&query=art&ct=



  #18  
Old September 29th 03, 08:25 PM
Constantinople
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Is photography art?

"William Graham" wrote in message news:AlKdb.621662$o%2.289165@sccrnsc02...

This is what makes painters like Van Eyke so valuable....The guy painted
like a camera, so you can really see what people and things looked like back
in those days....(1600's)


I saw an interesting book by David Hockney some time ago. His argument
is that many of the famous "photo-like" painters used
semi-photographic means to paint, spefically, camera obscura. Even
though they painted by hand, they were assisted by mechanisms like the
camera obscura. While we have some evidence of some painters doing
this, Hockney's assertion, if I understand correctly, was that the use
of mechanical assists was more widespread than had been previously
thought. So in a way, photography dates back to the 16th century, when
the camera obscura was invented (so I read).

Here's the Amazon.com link (hope it works; otherwise search for Secret
Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters
by David Hockney) :

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...648166-7732642

However, Van Eyck, while he had a great eye for detail (an example of
this being the reflection in the convex mirror of the Arnolfini
Marriage), was 15th century and so comes before the camera obscura.
  #19  
Old September 29th 03, 08:53 PM
jjs
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Is photography art?


"Raymond Kasprzak" wrote in message
...

You can debate this topic forever but the Encyclopedia Brittanica does
consider photography an art. Here is the link:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article...&query=art&ct=


Citing the Encyclopedia or Dictionary is the last resort of a desperado.


  #20  
Old September 29th 03, 08:59 PM
jjs
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Is photography art?


"Constantinople" wrote in message
m...
"William Graham" wrote in message

news:AlKdb.621662$o%2.289165@sccrnsc02...

This is what makes painters like Van Eyke so valuable....The guy painted
like a camera, so you can really see what people and things looked like

back
in those days....(1600's)


I saw an interesting book by David Hockney some time ago. His argument
is that many of the famous "photo-like" painters used
semi-photographic means to paint, spefically, camera obscura. Even
though they painted by hand, they were assisted by mechanisms like the
camera obscura. While we have some evidence of some painters doing
this, Hockney's assertion, if I understand correctly, was that the use
of mechanical assists was more widespread than had been previously
thought. So in a way, photography dates back to the 16th century, when
the camera obscura was invented (so I read).


Affirmed as well by Beumont Newhall as quoted: "In The History of
Photography, Beumont Newhall notes that Giovanni Battista della Porta
mentioned the camera obscura in his book Natural Magic as early as 1553 (9).
"


 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Photography books BlueDoze Digital Photography 2 June 29th 04 06:06 PM
New Digital Photography Community Forum Announcement George Digital Photography 1 June 24th 04 06:14 PM
Fuji S2 and Metz 44 Mz-2 Flash elchief In The Darkroom 3 April 7th 04 10:20 AM
Photo paper for pinhole photography. Jevin Sweval In The Darkroom 2 February 20th 04 06:50 PM
Night Photography Tom Phillips In The Darkroom 17 February 6th 04 01:47 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 09:16 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 PhotoBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.