Anyone interested in Art & Photography?

As in the manipulation and experimentation with images. I'm currently studying photography and have to do a 4,000 word essay on Art & Photography so was wondering if anyone had and ideas/input that may help?

I have to 'define' it which I'm struggling to do since its so different for everyone

Any tips for my essay are greatly welcomed!

 

I don't know if this will help. However I always viewed photography as a way to capture something that you find beautiful or interesting and sharing with others. Not everyone has the same way as you view the world and it's just one way to share it. *shrugs*

 

I view good well composed photography as a glimpse into the photographers' mind or internal vision. Yes I am not counting snapshots in that group for the most part, they are important in their own respect but often lack composure and planning by definition.
Dipping into my own pictures for an example, this was a decent picture as taken but spoke to me so much more with some very basic editing:


Or this one. The slight PS filter enhances it just enough, and to me it speaks of adventures waiting for you if you just climb on the train.

 

I see both as a means for exploring the world, ideas and concepts and as a highly effective means for channeling and exploring all of the boundlessly dynamic stuff that makes up existential experience.

 

Art comes from the heart. It captures the images of feelings, a moment in time. People can interpret art and photography on an experience in there life.
I believe this is why not one person sees a work of art the same way. There is always a desire to express life, it could be in writing, painting and in photography.
My avatar is a painting called distraction, as I painted. it changed with distractions in my life.

 

I don't know if this helps at all, but I had my own thoughts about art in general, and made a blog post about "What is Art" a while back.
.............
I think art is organizing and binding of time and material with intent. The intent is to add quality while expressing some purpose in our lives. Good art does this with aesthetic intent, craftsmanship and the imbuing of the artists pleasure into their construct. A person can be an artist in the way they load a truck, mop a floor or care for a child.
It isn’t necessary to intend to make art in order to have art made.
Art isn’t necessarily brought into being by persons who claim they are making art.
I am attaching a couple of clear examples of what I feel art is, where the intent of the creators wasn’t necessarily creating art as art – sometimes the conjoining of form and function result in art almost as a default. This is a beautiful truth.
neolithic tool set

​

Longji terraced rice fields in China

 

I just ran into a writeup by a photographer on Google+ who talks about the thinking behind the image. Might be worth a read.

http://www.jchristophergalleries.com/image-quest/?p=1746

 

Hi, Kramus.

What is the actual title of the essay?

 

Dang ... sorry, both ... I meant 'Hi, pumpkin '

 

Hello Kramus, thanks for sharing the link. I do agree with his interpretations of what is behind an image. Experienced it.

 

Wow, I am SO sorry for not checking back here sooner. Thank you guys so much for your help and the essay is still going throught the drafting stages so I can definitely use some of your input.

To Zen, the actual title is literally 'Art & Photography' as this is my chosen topic. Think Starn twins, Gerhard Ritcher or Barbara Kruger. Basically element of fine art mixed with those of Photography.

 

Thanks, pumpkin

kramus, above, expressed some of my feelings and judgments better than I could have. I shall proceed to prove this.

Historically, there have been time and motion assessments to ascribe worth to objects. From the great painters who mixed their own paints and applied manual and conceptual skills of representation, through photography, where vast swathes of sensa may be recorded and shared, to 'found art' where the artistic act is one of choice, acquisition and display. Photography lives a half-life in the debate between the notion of 'capture an image' and 'create an image'. Go to
Digital Photography Review
and spend a couple of hours browsing the forums where that debate builds and destroys lifelong friendships among many breeds of zealot. "It is only valid if the end user gets to see only what the camera saw!" ... as if the image is a 'found art', and that the skill of the photographer is that of hunter. "It is only art if the photographer has worked on the image and in an almost Hobbesian (or is it Lockian?) manner, given value to what's raw - made it h/er own by dint of labour!" Yet "This, whatever it be, is ART by my having defined it thus" - This latter position may often be ratified by the label or title given to it by the artist whose validity or credentials are determined by h/er being able to provide an account of the 'work' that is cogent with current aesthetic research. Ernst Gombrich who is one well established example of an artistic 'putter into words'. Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida are another pair of popular word/concept smiths. Call a given object 'art' and give a five minute talk about it as if your speaking the language of those three, and people will generally allow that it is art, even if they can't stand the sight of it. On DP review, there is one photographer who is a ... totally rubbish photographer. I mean cannot use the camera. However, he verbally fights not only for his output's status to be that of art, but for its status to be 'better art' that anybody else's. And you know what? 80% of the members swallow it.

The former position ("... ONLY what the camera saw") , far from carrying the intended banner of honesty, merely invokes a contradiction. Processing is needed for any image to be formed. And that something is an "image of" implies significant transformation. Since human intervention is present at every stage of the design and operation of the camera, there is no 'only' place of purity. Take Di Vinci's sketches ... i never saw him getting flamed in Renaissance forums for use of Crosshatching technique to model three-d forms "Leanar-doh, u suk! doncha know shading gotta be even?"

pumpkin I've teased apart a couple, at most, of the strands, and have thrown clumsily created extremes of the continuum I'm looking at. I hope it is of some use. Meanwhile, please post some of your rough-drafts. Y'see, I can do a mini brain dump of parts of the story that happen to interest me tonight, but give me some of YOUR direction, and I can run with it better.

Take care

 

I really don't come on here often enough, you're so awesome! But I've handed it in now so I guess we'll see ha. Thank you everyone for all the input.

 

I know this is a long time ago now but I checked back in and, if anyone is interested, I got an overall high B on the photography course. Thanks for all the help!