gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Thank you all. I enjoyed the wide range of replies. I get hung up on the concept of taking a photo versus making a photo. It's clear to me that even the humble snapshot can have the components of a "made" photo, perhaps subconsciously, and become a work of art. Keep snapping out there. ☺️☺️

revhen Loc: By the beautiful Hudson

I've been studying Monet. He would try again and again to capture the impression of one moment in terms of lighting, color, form, etc. Thus dozens of paintings of Rouen Cathedral, his lily pond, etc. In a sense photography is an attempt to capture such a moment. Thus, perhaps, art.

jack30000

Sometimes I take a photograph to "capture a moment." A selfie at a baseball game, a snapshot of my grandkids. Sometimes I take a photograph that I want to be "art." I try to capture something ib a way that you don't normally see it. My goal is to produce something good enough that someone else considers it art. Maybe sell a photograph, or have an exhibition in a gallery. Here are two I've submitted to "Focus 17" this year's photography exhibit by our local arts council.

Both were shot with a Canon Powershot SD550.

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

The only things that can be captured by a camera are the things that you can see. Now some people claim to be able to "see" the future, but that is a different scenario. And a thought cannot be seen except in your mind. As for symbols, this refers to something that induces a response based on what an individual has learned through personal experience. Some symbols are tangible and well-known, like the American Flag. But every individual has their own response.

Art in photography refers to the way an image can evoke a response in the viewer (just as other art forms will). You create that art by the way you create that image. So, as others have said, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". But the human eye is DIRECTLY connected to the human brain and what is seen is also interpreted. The camera sees the world in a different way and is incapable of doing more than recording what it "sees". We have often heard that the camera will "average" the light, and we also know that (like any other computer) you can only get out of it what you direct it to produce (focus, shutter speed, ISO, composition, etc.).

When you take a picture of something that you feel is beautiful, that you respond to on an emotional level, the result from the camera will often not be exactly the way you visualized it at the time. This is one place where art comes in: you edit that image so it better corresponds to what you "saw" when hitting the shutter button. Remember, you both saw the subject AND interpreted it. The camera is incapable of interpretation, just captures what is in front of it, within the limits of its capabilities.

Hope this helps to answer your questions!
Susan

Cykdelic Loc: Now outside of Chiraq & Santa Fe, NM

Let me ask you this......,would a picture of a young J. Dahmer torturing an animal represent a moment of the future???

John Howard Loc: SW Florida and Blue Ridge Mountains of NC.

I was about to write something similar when ai came across this post. Totally agree and would take it one step(click) further - I sometimes shoot in-camera multi exposures to show sequence / motion leading the view to imagine the next step.

DJO

There is an old saying in photography:

"Anyone can learn how to use a camera, but you can't teach someone how to see."

This paradigm is elucidated in a statement made by the great American painter Edward Hopper:

"The only quality that endures in art is a personal vision of the world. Methods are transient; personality is enduring."

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Only if you know "the rest of the story," and you were viewing it after that story could be told.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Fortunately, there seems to be something for everyone. First, and foremost in my mind, is that photography deals with documenting events that occur. I have no gut feeling of being artistic in the slightest but I do endeavor to do the best I can in documenting those things that I deem to be documentable. That includes using computer and software to make up for the flaws in what my camera captures but I still don't call that art because in both cases too much of it is out of my hands and those are the parts that I could not accomplish without the tools all of which were designed and built by someone else. I realize that can also be said of painting and I see that much as I see photography in that there are a lot of people who are good as painters but never paint anything original or out of their head that can be considered to be original. I think there's very little art going on in either painting or photography but that's just my take on the issue and I don't generally even share it with others, let alone try to influence their thinking. If I couldn't see myself as documenting events over which I have little or no influence, I wouldn't be able to be involved with photography because I have no sense of originality and am not about to take an image, put it in a computer and use some software to make a swirly thingee out of and call it art. Your mileage may vary but my approach is documentary and mechanical and more an attempt to master the use of a camera in an aesthetically pleasing manner than to create "art."

Djedi

THANK YOU sir! Love your words of wisdom and agree 100% Could not have put it better myself.
W

ELNikkor

Ok

Jim Plogger Loc: East Tennessee

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

First of all, photographs are art just by their fact of putting a crop around reality. That is a human act that says, I've created this image that says something to me. Do you feel it too? Whether it is good art is a value judgement. Incidentally, "beauty" is not a synonym for "art".

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

I have a company that sells "Photographic Art" at Fine Art America, currently doing right at $10,000 a month. My tagline is "Taking Pictures, Making Art." I take photographs and then take those pictures to Photoshop, Photo-Paint, Paintshop Pro, onOne, Picture Perfect, Fractalius, etc., etc., etc. and completely mess up the picture so that it no longer looks like a photograph. One picture could look like a painting; another, a sketch; another, a negative; another, whatever. If you ask me how I created any specific Photographic Art, I couldn't tell you because all I do is play around with a picture until I create something that I like and which is unique.

Jer Loc: Mesa, Arizona

Photography is Art.