minniev Loc: MIssissippi

The question of whether photography is art or not can bring out varied opinions, as it has on XKaliber’s recent thread about abstract work. I want to apply that same question to nature photography.

I don’t take classic bird pix - those beautiful portrait types with blurred backgrounds and catchlights in the eyes. All my birds are in context, hanging around in whatever cluttered background I found them, messy like everything else I shoot. I’d like your opinion about whether one of these images approaches (or impersonates) art and if so, which and why.

I invite you to hijack all you want, wander off on whatever your philosophy is about art and photography in general (or about birds). Any comments, critique, other examples or other ventures you want to tack on are entirely welcome. And it's OK to tell me they're just snapshots!

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Mahinog

Not wanting to hijack I will jump in with my first post on here.

Art is something that triggers Human emotion in any of it's ways. It dosnt matter if that art is chipped from stone, painted wit a brush, sprayed with a Aerosol on a wall or photographed with a camera. If it gives the person that looks at it any emotion then its art. art is in nature its in the mind, the subject doesnt matter.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Welcome to a place where hijackers are considered part of the family. Make yourself at home!

Frank2013 Loc: San Antonio, TX. & Milwaukee, WI.

It is my opinion that both of these shots are quality photographs. For me the art is seen in your ability to capture and present them.

ebrunner Loc: New Jersey Shore

If I understand your question correctly, you are wondering if art can be random (messy background) or must it be formulaic (catchlights and blurred background). I think both of your shots are artistic. There is an elegance in the wings of the first bird that makes the view long to have been right there to see that moment. The second shot has an inherent elegance because of the reflection. You can take a perfect shot of a bird sitting on a branch with catchlights, great detail and creamy background that might not make my heartstrings flutter. The question of weather something is art or not has to be asked and answered for each photo by the viewer. Once posted, the photographer is just another critic.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Thank you Frank. I'm not sure about the art part, that's why I asked:)

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Thank you for this thoughtful consideration. I appreciate its seriousness. I will never make those kinds of perfect bird images that "real" bird photographers make, and I am never sure how my choice of environmental clutter makes my birds snapshots, or whether some of them are more than that.

RiverNan Loc: Eastern Pa

I have to agree with Frank.
on download both images are sharp
and indicate your expertise with your camera
you found your subject and likely composed it
in its natural environment as you wanted.
My preference between the two is the white bird as
I am a sucker for reflections..and I like very much the
contrast of the white on the darker surroundings. Very easy on the eyes
In regards to the heron, I felt I had to look too hard to see the fish.
I do believe both can be considered art.

Billyspad Loc: The Philippines

min I like your shots because they were taken on the fly and natural. Your one of the few who takes photographs so I will not call them snaps.
However they are not art. They are literal depictions captured by a mechanical device. As nice as they are they fail to elevate the imagination in the way an artist can do with starting with a blank canvas and a vision combined with the uniqueness of the human eye and brain.
Why is it difficult for some to accept a sensor image purely as a photograph depicting reality in the 100th of a second the shutter was open.
Does the imagined association with art production make it any more worthy than a photograph?
Not at all. It demonstrates ones ability to see a scene and capture it perfectly by mastery of a mechanical device. All one can do is capture what is there in a literal sense. The person behind the viewfinder has no input into the scene. It is not art.
If the resulting print fires the imagination of the viewer, or more often they think it does, then that's a bonus. It is still not art.

St3v3M Loc: 35,000 feet

To define a discussion we need to define the words we use to understand them.

In this post then we must first define the word art.
- What is art, and in the same what is not?

Until we have a common understanding the debate will never end. S-

Billyspad Loc: The Philippines

The question of what is art will never be answered St3v3M. You know that and I know that.
The question that I find constantly perplexing is why someone who buys a camera suddenly feels it elevates them to the status of "artist".
What happens to them that suddenly they stop being a plumber and become an artist.
I have made the point until its become boring but ol'Billy is a taker of snap shots who plays in Photoshop and happy with that status and any title other than the unearned one of artist.
Would love to hear from those who consider themselves artists and try and understand the difference between them and myself.
I can fix a leaking tap I aint a plumber you take snaps so what makes you an artist?

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Thanks for your comments, Nan. I am a sucker for reflections too. The images are taken in the same place a couple of days apart, a place where various water birds may show up. I do sit, wait, think, attempt to compose (though birds don't always cooperate and neither does the light).

I'm of mixed mind about them both, and liked them equally for my own part, but felt the second one had a bit more to say as an abstract as well as a representational image.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Billy Billy, you protest too much. You create and post art rather regularly. Does everybody like your art or see its value? No, they don't all see the value of mine either. But there's a plenty artists we can both name whose fame eluded them till they had fluttered into the Great Beyond. Maybe you and me will be that way?

My two images here are very different. How they were composed was different, how they were captured, how they were cropped and processed. The first is very straightforward. I consider it a salvaged snap. I was there, I was ready, I knew what I had to do if he moved, but I had no control over what he gave me, and I had serious doubts about whether the image could be salvaged because I had to underexpose so to keep the brights from blowing in the harsh sun. But through the magic of PP, he emerged, fish and all, water dripping off his wings. But it was matter of pixel rescue.

The second is a different story. I have a slightly more "artisty" feeling about him than the other. Instead of pixel rescue, this one felt more like a sculpture. I stalked the bird till he did what I wanted, exactly where I wanted him to do it in the light I wished him into. Then I shaped it into what I wanted, anthropomorphic tree and all. The finished image has also traveled further in review - it went before a little international critique group I belong to, and the feedback I got was most interesting. Maybe I would call this one a photograph with artistic intent, and perhaps some artistic merit :D

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Of course there will never be consensus, but we can enjoy a good argument about it anyway :D If we get too rowdy though, you can always lock us back in our cells for a bit...

St3v3M Loc: 35,000 feet

LAF