gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

As an amateur and not an artist by any means, I struggle with this concept. Art in photography can be accomplished by plan or by fortune (and that doesn't mean GAS). So I'm thinking that the art side shows the use of symbolic thought, using a symbol for some physical thing that is not there, or for an emotion that is not the viewer's own. But I struggle with the conflict that photography can capture a moment in time, in the past as it is, but not a moment in the future. Is there a symbolic approach to that?

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

No.

ggttc Loc: TN

All photographs are in real time...so no.

CaltechNerd Loc: Whittier, CA, USA

Stano

In college I took a course in aesthetics or the philosophy of art, a whole semester about what is beauty and how does art express truth!

I think Keats sums it up nicely: Beauty is truth, truth beauty -- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

What about the guys who illustrated thousands of so-called science fiction books, magazines and comics and then turned them into movies? Photography, the final frontier...These are the voyages of the starship Canonikon. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new apertures, seek out faster shutter speeds and discover greater depths of field, to boldly go where no Hedgehog has gone before.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

I don't think so, but one approach is to try to take pictures that tell a story (even if its only in your own mind), it can be a capture of a moment, that does anticipate some kind of reaction, or any sort/thing that is telling something (put a meaning to something), anything. If you can accomplish that, you'll a big step closer to what you asked about!!

Ted Evans Loc: Jasper, AL

Photography does not need to be symbolic
to be art, artistic. How many pictures have
you seen of natural scenes and/or objects
- wildflowers, mountains with or without
snow. Study photography as art from Art
Wolfe - a master of the subject.

canon Lee

I am a creative person in all the things I do, from trying too dress good, to decorating my home, to taking out a canvas and painting. etc. I feel many are drawn to photography for different reasons. Some to record the past, ( the kids growing up, vacations), weddings ( as additional income), commercial studio photography,( going into the business of photography) and those that just love to take pictures and have no idea that it's their creative side that urges them to do so... Art and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Shovel, please...

If you enjoy it, who cares?

Academics love to argue horse hockey like this. To paraphrase Descartes, if you think something is art, it is. Perception is nine tenths of reality.

Asking such questions is like getting a lecture hall full of PhD philosophers to define God. It starts an endless round of controversy that just pisses people off and starts wars!

Relax and enjoy the side show.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Not one of those objects are real in a photograph. They are all symbols that represent the real things. All photography is abstract, simply because we see a three dimensional world and abstract it to a 2 dimensional photograph.

Of course the really good stuff is much more complex than that. We have photographs where the "subject" is something intangible, and not even visible! Yet photography hasn't really reached the level of Pablo Picasso's Cubism, where he generated the abstraction of an object to symbolize a universal object. Not a "cup", but every possible type of cup a viewer might be able to imagine.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

That nails it!

jackpi Loc: Southwest Ohio

If you compose your image, you are an artist. If you post process your image, you are an artist. In both cases your image is the result of your creative decisions and actions. Whether you are an great artist or a poor artist depends on innate talent, education, and practice.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Sort of like the old Israeli joke about locking three politicians in a room for a day and they end up forming 5 new political parties.

It is a head game and what is art to one is junk to another. But for a long time now the "artists" have been convincing a lot of people who have money and are desperate to be part of the in crowd on the "leading edge" in art to finance a lot of stuff that 90%+ of the population consider junk or a joke.

As to beauty, culture is a large part of it. What one culture considers beautiful another considers ugly.

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

Photography can be many things for many people. Macro allows one to 'see' beyond one's natural abilities. B & W is not a usual view. We try to capture landscapes in the extraordinary rather than merely as a record. Others rejoice in capturing a moment or a thing expressly for its intrinsic value.

Equally, photography can be a tool to express 'anything'. From a 'selfie' telling the world 'I am', to a manufactured image bearing no relationship to the natural world.

As a starting point in Art, one has to accept that 'reality' was never previously an option for those portraying events. No historical picture was 'as seen'. They were all manufactured and used as illustrations of ideas or events only.

Symbolism is only a part of some art. It is important in order to show 'belonging' to a particular group. If one can 'read the symbols' then one is 'showing a secret knowlege' that many people will not understand or never know. Particularly in pictures associated with Christian sects. Methodists gave different meanings to certain fruits, flowers, furniture etc than did Baptists or Roman Catholics. What the Masons did in stone, the Victorians did in art for the masses.

Photography for many, merely allows you to create or recreate past art forms without the need for painterly skills. One can set a scene and instantly record it in all the colours of your choice. Others manipulate the very building blocks of an image to portray that which has never before existed. If evolution is your aim then one can even 'sew' on bits from many animal images to create a new generation.

A camera is but a tool for your imagination. It is just up to you to 'discover' what you want it to do.

Have fun