'Photography is the most difficult of the arts. It doesn't require a certain arrogance to see and choose. With the camera, it’s all or nothing.'
- Walker Evans
To explain that so mommy here can understand something past grade 5 english, Walker Evans is saying that photography is difficult because you can't always modify the surroundings. Of course, you can go chop down a tree or if someone's standing in the way of your shot you can kick them in the balls repeatedly until they move or die, but that's not changing the scene through the camera, that's changing the scene altogether. With something like drawing or painting, the artist involved there can paint the whole scene and decide not to include a tree, or a bird on the sky, or even shift something 3 inches to the left to complete the composition. With photography, you can't just go out and shift an island so it fits your composition better.
Also, painters aren't faced with exposure. What the human eye sees is incredible, no film or digital sensor can ever compare to what range of colours the human eye sees as well as it's extraordinary latitude. With photography, you have to work with the disability of film and digital sensors. For example, here are some things a photographer may decide to do when shooting a sunset:
- Expose for the sunset so it turns out nice, rest of the shot is black
- Expose for the ground... but now the sunset is a bleached white sky
- Go right in the middle, a slightly overexposed sunset and a slighty underexposed foreground... still not great.
- Take 2 pictures, one for the sunset, one for the ground, merge them in photoshop.
- Use a graduated neutral density filter which is a piece of glass tinted on the top to shade some of the light, so you can get a good exposure of the sunset as well as a good exposure of the ground.
- Expose for the sunset, use a very long exposure and use flashes or a flashlight to illuminate the foreground.
There are so many different ways to approach that, just like a painter may choose which brush they'd like to use, and a sketch artist can choose the density of pencil for their choice.
For who was talking about how people can sit down and just create art on a blank canvas, you can do that with photography as well. I know that I don't always just go out and take pictures of everything, I'll go out with an idea in mind, as will many other people. Take Ira (freeskiing04) for example because he has many shots in the art section right now, he went out with his fisheye lens with the intention of taking long exposures at night while cars passed by. That's what he set out to do, and that's what he did. I do the same, I wanted to go out and find a corroded old builing, using black & white film to make the texture of this rundown shithole be the main point of the photo. So I did, I went out and found a ratty ass old builing and shot a photo of it.
In the end, photography
is art, whether you're shooting with a pinhole camera, point & shoot, digital SLR, or large format camera, it's all art. You may say that someone who takes a photo of their drunk friend isn't art, but what's the difference between that and drawing a picture of the drunk friend? Not much. It's still art, the only difference is that it's horrible art and the person taking the photo probably didn't even realize they were creating art.
Also, anyone can go and buy a $20,000 pro camera setup, does that mean that because they're using this it makes what they're taking is good art? Hell no, just like someone can pick up a $5 disposable camera and take nicely composed photos that are masterpieces.
In the end, it's art, it's been stated as art, as have digital art, sketching, ink, painting, sculpture, knitting, sex, spray paint, toothpicks and gumdrops, cheerios, etc. etc.
P.S. I also agree that people who go and take a pic of a curb and say that they're expressing themself is fucking bull. It's still art, just horrible, worthless art. That's like modern art where someone stuck a Christmas tree in a bathtub, called it 'Christmas tree in bathtub' and sold it for thousands. But props to that person for taking advantage of artsy fartsy tools.
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