Photography Legitimacy

'The Photographer's Eye'

This article had a variety of reactions from me throughout its entirety. It started off with a comparison on the process of a painting vs. a photograph, with the key point being "paintings were made...and photographs were...taken." Photography was not viewed as art during its early years. The craft was new and innovative for its time, but compared to old artistic traditions, was deemed a hobby, not a skill. Anyone could be a photographer, where painting and drawings was a craft for the elite and learned. This view of photography irritated me, but I soon realized as I kept reading, that my reaction to this opinion was based off of years of personal experience and knowledge on photography.

In the beginning stages of photography, in order to be credited as an art form, photographers had to find new ways and approaches to capturing an image. The mass production of the daguerreotype allowed for anyone to have access to a plethora of images and prints, opening the eyes to many on a different way to view the world. The subject in a painting typically demonstrated a person or image of importance, but when photographers from any background began to shoot, atypical subjects started to appear. Photography changed the expectation for subject matter, allowing anything, anyone, or any place to be remembered, regardless of birth or value. "Photography had become easy," and "trivial things took on importance." The accessibility of photography allowed anyone to participate in showing how they viewed the world.

Out of the millions of photos being taken, occasionally, a memorable photograph was discovered. But the underlying question throughout the article was, "is photography artistic?"
Was the photo a result of skill or luck? Who taught the photographer how to photograph? There were no schools focusing on the art, but people learned from the success stories.

Well, they learned from each other. From observing. From mistakes. From shooting, shooting, shooting.
In the end, it was learned:

Photographers had to realize that a picture was not reality, but that this view of the actual could hold more importance than the event itself.
The purpose of photography is not to explain a story, but to make it real. A narrative story has a small place in photography, but graphic images can make a situation come to life.
Framing and the realization that photographers can play with their subject space opened doors for a way to view the world. It's no longer just about the subject, because the space around them can be manipulated to change the entire image.
And lastly, that a photograph is more than just a moment. The simple truth that a photograph is captured over a few moments, allowed for us to realize how movement truly looks. Subjects gained clarity by putting them into sequence, allowing time to be broken up in a way that enlightened us to anatomy and the way things move.

Turns out, it pays off to be open minded. All artists can learn something from each other, because at the end of the day, we all see the world in a different way.

The question "is photography artistic" really rings true to the photo collage project. I remember feeling like the photos I were taking nothing special. That 4x6 image zoomed into the side of a building on its own is not, in my opinion, artistic. However, piecing 75 unartistic photos together to create one large idea makes it an exceedingly creative work of art.