Photography returns to the National Art Gallery in Ottawa

[Robert Roaldi]

For those who may have missed this news: Big Picture

[TomFrerichs]

For those who may have missed this news: Big Picture

I was struck by one paragraph in the story:

Photography is perhaps the most segregated of all art forms. Its practitioners have a tendency to divide fashion photography from photojournalism, fine art photography from documentary photography. The new CPI will take a larger view – the big picture, if you will.

I hadn't really thought about it, but photographers do tend to silo their work into neat, small categories. I can understand some of this: you certainly don't want to include landscapes in your wedding portfolio if you're trying to get work, but why do we tend to compartmentalize our work when we just want to share what we've done?

Tom

[Robert Roaldi]

I have no idea how/why things evolved this way. Maybe an email to the curators might get a response. They might be flattered that someone asked.

I can see where the commercial side would end up this way. If you target your advertizing to people getting married, then you become a wedding photographer. If you do product photography of jewelry, then you're a product photographer. If you spend 30 weekends per year shooting weddings, you might not enough energy left to do anything else, and the people you hang around with probably do similar work, so pretty soon, even if you didn't intend it, you're in a silo.