Idea Essay #1: Is Photography Art?

Man invented this apparatus which put the portrait painter out of business. Instead of a subject sitting for hours, they pose once and in a matter of seconds their portrait is complete. Okay, maybe a little bit longer for those nostalgic polaroid people. But for the majority of humanity, photography has reduced the act of creating an image to pushing a button on a machine. Wait about 5 more minutes and your pictures appear on your computer screen. So, heres the question. Is photography really art? Is an image that took, lets say 2 hours to create (1 hour photo is not always reliable) really an art form? Can it be ranked with the canvases of Picasso or the music of Debussy or the works of Michelangelo? Where does photography lie in the spectrum of art?

If you boil it down, photography is a moment of reality captured as a still image. To some theorists, this would be the ultimate art form. As long as the camera isn’t set to any crazy settings that distort proportions or turn the sky purple, photography is the epitome of mimetic art. There are, however, many ways in which photography can be manipulated to create different effects. With software like photoshop an image can be altered to show almost anything imaginable. And all photo software comes with tools that can change the tint, sharpness, brightness etc... of the images. Many times photos don’t even originate in mimesis. Some photographers set their cameras to take pictures which reflect reality, while others use shutter speed and aperture settings to alter the appearance of the image as it is being captured. One of my favorite types of photography is black and white photography, which is definitely not an accurate portrayal of reality.

But is mimesis really the point of art? In my opinion, if you want to look at reality, just look at reality. What is the point of art which only shows you what you can already see? Art should reveal deeper truths about life. It should move the viewer emotionally or mentally. Like other art, photography has this capability. When I look at the photography of Ansel Adams I am moved by the grand scale and beauty of the landscape images he captured. His images are just photos of places like the Grand Canyon and Yosemite, but he manages to find proper angles, lighting and viewpoints to make his images powerful.

For example, here’s a photograph I took of the Grand Canyon:



And here’s a shot Ansel Adams took of the Grand Canyon.



The difference in the impact of the images is striking. My photo is just that, a photograph. It shows you what I saw in front of me but it doesn’t have any emotional impact. His image is art. There is a power and grandeur in his image that is incredibly difficult to capture.

Photography may seem like an easy art form that any one can contribute to. But good photography takes hard work and patience, just like any other art form. These artists sit outside for hours in one spot to find the perfect lighting, take and develop thousands of shots, and search for hours to find the perfect angles. Photography is not as easy as many people believe it to be and it has the ability to show us true reality in ways other art can’t, while provoking thought and emotion.