The Art of Photography

Why did the chicken cross the road?

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

What is art?

These are questions that have plagued our existence for ages. We've all been posed with answers that are never as simple as they may initially seem. Despite the high percentage of philosophical focus directed on the existence of chickens here, I'd like to focus on the last of these three inquiries for a moment.

What is art?

A question asked on the first day of every Arts 101 class that will spark debate no matter what. Everyone's first answer: A painting.
And then someone else will pipe up: Well, sculpture is art.
And someone else: What about music? dance? theatre? design? writing?
Before you know it there is a list of mediums running from animation to film noir, from jazz music to installation, from poetry slams to modern dance. The point is to understand that art can be almost anything creative, in the eye of the beholder.

Regardless, we all find our niches and create our own structured definitions for what art is. We find our style and our medium, forgetting about the rest. When that definition is challenged, however, it can be hard to accept what another defines as art.

I work at an art gallery and have heard many an interpretation of what art is or should be over the years, from many people. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. Often I'm just intrigued by how others see the world.

Today though, a patron's comment struck me harder than any in recent memory. After viewing our current exhibit that features many mediums of visual art, she went on to say how disappointed she was to see so much photography in a show themed around landscapes. Triggered from the fact that a photograph won an esteemed award from the jurors, she declared how she would never enter a show where such a thing could happen.

"My 30 - 40 hours of painting versus a snapshot?" she told me, "Anyone can take picture, and then with all that technology, anyone can make it look good. "

True, anyone can pick up a camera, anyone can engage the shutter. 

But, anyone can pick up a paintbrush, anyone can make a brushstroke.

This isn't to say I don't see where her thought process is coming from. When an oil painting hangs on a wall, you can see the hours of work that went into it. In the layers upon layers of paint, in the detail and the complexity of movements from a brush. There are imperfections and - as Bob Ross would say - happy little mistakes. It is full of emotion and meaning.

A photograph... well it's just a moment in time, right? A frozen tidbit of a real world. How much work could go into that?

A camera is merely a tool, like paint or a brush. And it is the responsibility of the photographer to  create something with it. Hours of planning, preparation and set up can go into a shot. A photographer thinks like a painter - finding composition, colour, light balance, meaning.

Both a painter and a photographer must use their tools to create the image. Where a painter sketches a drawing, a photographer sets up a shot. A painter chooses their palate, a photographer uses filters. Where a painter creates a wash, a photographer chooses an aperture.

A painter can spend a meticulous amount of time on the detail of a piece or can abstractly throw paint at a canvas to demonstrate their vision. A photographer can spend hours setting up a shot, or capture a fleeting moment. Both require skill, confidence, and technique.

But is it art?

You can't photograph fantasy or imagination. The camera can only see what is actually there.
It requires someone with a vision to do the impossible. Art is about emotion. A photographer must figure out how to augment reality and stir up emotion from an audience.

It is the creative process that people cannot always see in the end product of a photograph. A two dimensional, flat image as an end to a journey of vision, creativity and technique. An image left with the task of connecting with its audience emotionally, reaching deep inside to spark the child-like feeling of wonder and curiousity.

If that isn't art, what is?

Maybe the chicken knows.


"You don't take a photograph, you make it." - Ansel Adams