Can photography be art?

In this post and the one preceding ti:

dprevived.com/t/are-you-obsessed-with-the-technology-only/2826/post/29403/

@LeeJay said: "I don't think anyone really produces art with photography." and then suggested the topic be discussed in another thread.

This is that thread.

I don't see anything there that would keep photography from being a way to make art.

Comments?

Of course photography can be art Jim, what is there to discuss.
...unless we're talking about shots of small backyard birds feeding. lol

“You can take a good picture of anything. A bad one, too.” 

-- William Eggleston.

@LeeJay's statement makes no sense to me. I would like to hear how he defines art that would preclude anything from possibly being art.

art is pretty much what the creator of that object says it is … Art is what a Major published critic, patron or museum says it is ….

WhyNot

IMHO the distinct border between technology and art doesn't exist.
Greek tekhnē (τέχνη) means "art, skill, craft in work; method, system, an art, a system or method of making or doing".

That's a rather fuzzy topic, as the term art is in itself not so easy to define precisely.

As for what I think it is, art is any form of production that has the intention to evoke or provoke something, a sentiment, an idea, a reflexion to someone else.
For me that's how I make the difference between an artist and a craftsman. The second has the intention to produce something, maybe beautiful, maybe very skilfully, but the intention is the object in itself (take a violon, it's build to be the best violon possible, nothing more, but it's already on the verge, because the craftsman could hope his piece to be a source of inspiration for the player, more than just by the functionality of the instrument). The artist will write a piece of music not just for the sake of producing a piece of music, but when this is played and listened to, the composer has the intention to make something else pass to the listener than simply the notes. Sadness, grandeur, joy, fear, whatever.
And this can explain some very mindboggling pieces of modern art (take Duchamps). Some people do not grasp why a toilet seat is presented as a piece of art. That's art for Duchamps because he wanted to convey a message, a reflexion. That's surely not art for someone that do not grasp the message.

This sadly is often used to justify non art, or errors or errands of someone post-justifying over-intellectually something that has miserably failed (yeah, all my polaroids are rotten, but that was deliberate ;-), I have that grand scheme of showing the decay of our world. hmmm. That can be geniune, or totally fake.

And sometimes, you find cheap print-on-demand 'art photography' ready to be framed that look to me to be craftsmanship, not art.

Packshot, commercial photography, fashion top model photography, rarely I see art there. Often, superbly done, qualitative to the extreme, but conveying nothing else than an illustrative purpose.

And because Art is defined (to me at least) by what message is conveyed, everyone will be sensitive to a degree to the message, is readability, some will grasp it, some not, and some will say that's art, and other that's not art, that's documentary, and so on.

So, someone can see a photography as art, because the picture evokes something to her/him (I mean something more than just laugh or basic information), even if the photographer did not knew the picture could convey that message, and some photographers can take pictures thinking they are making art, with a purpose, a message, an intention, but no one understand or receive the intended message.

Art being a vector, the two sides have their own point of view.

My two cents ;-).

Greg

Art is making something from nothing, and selling it for money. lol

I’ve been to an Andy Warhol exhibition !
www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/sep/30/andy-warhols-star-studded-photographs-you-find-out-much-more-about-him-as-a-person

That is a cynical definition of art and does not match reality.

Based on my former post, one could see Wharol as a craftsman only, if his intention was only to produce pieces to be sold, having no other intention to evoke something on every piece produced.
One could however argue that by doing this, Wharol had a meta-message criticizing the monetisation of the art, by pushing the model 'a outrance', cynically.

Greg

I do not think that this thread is about Warhol's work, but about whether photography can be art.

Thread drift is is a powerful thing. I'm interested in seeing where this goes.

For me, threads /discussions here at dprevived sound much better in Stereo, not Mono. lol

I just made this. Is it art?

Self portrait. Did somebody mention Marcel Duchamp?

I think most people out there would agree with LeeJay, which is why I consider "art" to be just marketing bullshit. In the end, it's really just people selling themselves and selling their work, and some are successful at it and some are not. I'm not concerned about marketing, I just want to take a good photos. Do I consider it art? Do other people consider it art? Who cares.

LeeJay has been consistent in his views on this are for some time. I remember arguments to the same 5+ years ago on DPR.

I really don't trouble myself with it, as I have never attempted to create art with my photography, but people much smarter than me in the field of art say that it is art, so good enough for me. I have definitely seen photos that look like art to me, but when I am taking a picture at sunset of a city skyline or something similar, I surely don't feel like an artist.

Artists are creative people. They can use many medii (medias?) to make their art. Farts for example ( fart artists are called petomans), sometimes even photography.

Jim wrote: I just made this. Is it art?

It is now…