Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => But is it Art? => Topic started by: Isaac on March 30, 2012, 05:57:49 pm

Title: But is it photography?
Post by: Isaac on March 30, 2012, 05:57:49 pm
OK, it's Art - but is it Photography?

"... Gütschow starts like a painter with a blank canvas." (http://www.mocp.org/exhibitions/2007/10/beate_guetschow.php)
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on March 30, 2012, 06:25:54 pm
Photo-illustration? Photomontage?
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on March 30, 2012, 06:28:09 pm
Photomagicography?
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Isaac on March 31, 2012, 01:28:33 am
Photo-illustration? Photomontage?
Photomontage  à la John Heartfield - but is this now just clone and layer, ordinary digital image making with photoshop ;-)

If this camera art is like photomontage does that start to explain the reluctance of some to celebrate the success of Andreas Gursky's work in the Art world, the reluctance that you previously found so puzzling?

It doesn't seem like what used to be thought of as photography, any more than collage seems like photography. It seems more like the appropriation of photographic images - pseudo photography, camera art.
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: popnfresh on April 30, 2012, 03:58:31 pm
"Photography" is a misnomer. Heliography is the original, and proper, term.
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Isaac on May 01, 2012, 11:18:03 am
"Photography" is a misnomer. Heliography is the original, and proper, term.

Would that cover work that does not use the sun as light source?
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: luxborealis on May 12, 2012, 09:32:47 pm
Photomagicography?

+1

But of course, if it's on MoCP it must be art!!

The lesson here - do something so one has done before and be bold about it. Be "in" with the right crowd and they will start to believe that it's art, even if it does't mean anything to anyone.
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Isaac on May 13, 2012, 11:11:26 am
But of course, if it's on MoCP it must be art!!
Here's the question again - But is it photography?
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Isaac on May 13, 2012, 12:29:01 pm
...even if it does't mean anything to anyone.
So it doesn't mean anything to anyone because....?

Please do more than pluck a judgement out of thin air.
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: popnfresh on May 16, 2012, 09:20:27 pm
But of course, if it's on MoCP it must be art!!

The lesson here - do something so one has done before and be bold about it. Be "in" with the right crowd and they will start to believe that it's art, even if it does't mean anything to anyone.
You sound like someone who's angry about a rejection notice they recently received.
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: John Camp on May 23, 2012, 05:49:51 pm
It's essentially a photographic collage, done with Photoshop. Not conceptually much different than what Jerry Uelsmann (or a lot of other people) did with film-based photography.

My question would not be whether it's photography, but whether it's art? (But then, I have a rather narrow view of what constitutes art, and it's NOT whatever somebody says it is.) I think photographic art involves very careful, serious, investigations of reality, and almost automatically excludes anything Photoshopped. Photoshopping (in the usual sense of that word; I'm not referring to minor adjustments) automatically obscures initial conditions, and so has little to say about reality.

Okay. I've got to stop now. I'm writing this on a Delta flight into LA, and the overhead TV is showing two polar bears having sex. Makes it hard to concentrate... 
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on May 23, 2012, 06:53:26 pm
... TV is showing two polar bears having sex. Makes it hard to concentrate... 

Or, in other words, you could bearly concentrate?
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Isaac on May 24, 2012, 01:24:05 pm
My question would not be whether it's photography, but whether it's art?

ART; The Picnic That Never Was (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E5DC123FF932A15752C1A9629C8B63) New York Times, November 21, 2004
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: jule on May 26, 2012, 08:08:59 pm
Here in Australia it would be most likely referred to as Photo-media and not Photography.

Julie
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Phil Indeblanc on May 27, 2012, 02:58:45 am
Art to the masses is what ever is packaged and spoon fed to who ever swallows as "art" for the sake of the word having of mass importance and meaning. It could be a ton of bricks. If a big mouth BS artist with the right audience says it is art. So it be....Art for the masses. The word art is like any other term the promoter decides it to be....
wmd, terrorism, insurgents, settlers, pro-life, bauhaus....etc.  these words too are designed to sell you something...The idea, the feeling, or the lack of.  It is all an art form.  The question is.....Whos buying it?

Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Rob C on May 27, 2012, 04:14:15 am
Art to the masses is what ever is packaged and spoon fed to who ever swallows as "art" for the sake of the word having of mass importance and meaning. It could be a ton of bricks. If a big mouth BS artist with the right audience says it is art. So it be....Art for the masses. The word art is like any other term the promoter decides it to be....
wmd, terrorism, insurgents, settlers, pro-life, bauhaus....etc.  these words too are designed to sell you something...The idea, the feeling, or the lack of.  It is all an art form.  The question is.....Whos buying it?



Presumably, the small clique that's always buying and selling it; it circulates therein and the perceived value builds or falls, all embraced in the mini-climate and ecosphere within which it exists. That the excluded, rest of the world doesn't see the rules and values of the game matters not a jot.

Rob C
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Isaac on June 04, 2012, 05:20:51 pm
Quote
But "the picture sold too fast," he said. "It must have been priced too low." He is philosophical, nonetheless: "Every picture has three prices - yesterday's, today's and tomorrow's. If it has yesterday's price, it's a bargain; today's is fairly priced, and tomorrow's, you have to wait a while before it achieves its value."

New York Times - March 13, 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/arts/design/13geft.html)
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: theguywitha645d on July 05, 2012, 04:14:53 pm
Sure, it is photography. Photography is rather a broad discipline.
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Isaac on July 07, 2012, 10:48:13 pm
Perhaps you've found the crux - if we feel photography should be broadly defined then..., but if we feel photography should be narrowly defined then...
Title: Re: But is it photography?
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Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: petermfiore on July 09, 2012, 08:28:56 am
It is an image. If it moves you, it is Art. How it was made or what you call it should not matter.

Peter


www.peterfiore.com
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on July 09, 2012, 08:47:25 am
It is an image. If it moves you, it is Art. How it was made or what you call it should not matter.

Peter


www.peterfiore.com
+10.

Eric
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Isaac on July 09, 2012, 11:05:32 am
It is an image. If it moves you, it is Art. How it was made or what you call it should not matter.

It seems to matter to some. (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=67501.0)
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on July 09, 2012, 02:30:35 pm
It seems to matter to some. (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=67501.0)
And they get my sympathy.
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: brandtb on July 12, 2012, 06:21:20 pm
Quote
If it moves you, it is Art.

So if one individual were to look at a landscape painting...say for example the renowned J.M.W.Turner's Norham Castle Sunrise...and say "I can't stand this bloody rot...does absolutely nothing for me" - then is it ...not art? I would suggest that art is not somehow made valid by a viewer (any viewer) having a "moving experience" , but by the intent of the maker (note the maker of art - may or may not be moved by something he or she makes - but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not art). (whether it is saleable or called art in the marketplace is of course an entirely different matter)
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Rob C on July 13, 2012, 06:36:51 am
Jean Loup Sieff wrote: there is no art, only artists.

Rob C
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: petermfiore on July 14, 2012, 09:11:36 am
"I can't stand this bloody rot...does absolutely nothing for me" - then is it ...not art?


Bloody rot = being moved!!!

Good or not!


www.peterfiore.com
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: GEOFFREYJAMES on July 14, 2012, 01:46:05 pm
Duchamp said that photography would make people despise painting and then something would come along to make people despise photography.  I am tempted to say that something is....Photoshop.   But in fact photography has many rooms and there is one for each of us.  I would tend to delay any opinion on Gutschow until I have seen the work in person. 
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: brandtb on July 14, 2012, 06:44:34 pm
Quote
Bloody rot = being moved!!!

You're missing my point there...you may have gotten hung up on my "bloody rot" bit...so let's keep it simple. If e.g. someone looks at the Turner painting and is "not moved" (whatever moved/not moved is exactly - who knows - it seems that's about as wide open as a South Dakota plain)  - then the axiom holds that...the viewer of the art was not moved so it is not in fact art (even though the painter J.M.W. Turner was a renowned painter and artist, or as he is often referred to as a "painters painter").
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on July 14, 2012, 07:36:42 pm
... If e.g. someone looks at the Turner painting and is "not moved"... then the axiom holds that... it is not in fact art...

Correct... for that viewer, that is.

So, if someone thinks it is and someone thinks it isn't (art), on an individual and obviously subjective level, how do we come up with an objective definition (which seems to be what are you driving at)?

Well... we can not.

It remains deeply subjective. What humanity "objectively" considers art is a historic and group consensus of those who subjectively think it is. In other words, if there are enough people, across social groups and time, that consider Turner an artist, then he is.
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: RSL on July 14, 2012, 08:11:47 pm
Back to your previous, good avatar, Slobodan!
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on July 14, 2012, 09:32:55 pm
Back to your previous, good avatar, Slobodan!

And I thought some (on this forum) would prefer me in that shape and form  ;) ;D
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: RSL on July 14, 2012, 09:48:40 pm
AAAhhhhhhh!!!!!!
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: petermfiore on July 14, 2012, 11:31:53 pm
If an artist makes works and they never see the light of day, they are still art.





www.peterfiore.com
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on July 14, 2012, 11:40:48 pm
AAAhhhhhhh!!!!!!
So now we know Slobodan is a camera-wielding zombie and Russ is a little kid.
(And I'm just a manhole cover and some tar squiggles...)
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Rob C on July 15, 2012, 03:39:32 am
So now we know Slobodan is a camer-wielding zombie and Russ is a little kid.
(And I'm just a manhole cover and some tar squiggles...)




But at least you exist...

Rob C
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on July 15, 2012, 09:02:04 am


But at least you exist...

Rob C
As DesCartes' grandson might have said, "I think I think; therefore I think I am."
Title: Re: But is it photography?
Post by: Rob C on July 15, 2012, 03:15:29 pm
As DesCartes' grandson might have said, "I think I think; therefore I think I am."



I like a person with a firm gasp on reality.

Rob C