However, I think you are wrong and haven't justified your point.
When I look at the work of someone like Gregory Crewdson[1] who has an idea, builds a set, lights a set, posses models and then processes multiple negatives into a final finished image, I see something.
I think it's art because it's a deliberate, complex thing. I see no purpose in it other than to be pleasing. I don't know where his vison comes from but it's much copied but, to my mind, so far not equalled.
Which is a long way round to saying, I like it. :P
If David Lynch films are art then Gergory Crewdson photographs are the same kind of art.
1. He actually uses a whole team to make his images but I'll just talk about him to save on confusion.
(Not really a critique of your post but the one it responds to.)
> I'm giving you an up vote as I think your opinion deserves to be heard...
> However, I think you are wrong and haven't justified your point.
I think this deserves to be highlighted. I sometimes do this too, when I think an idea I disagree with is unfairly being pushed out of the discussion.
(I agree with your position, but I think I would have read it and scrolled past without voting otherwise.)
But when I take art classes, I'm not taking photos. I do that in photography class. So as a matter of definition, a photo for me qualifies not as art.
Fuck. Can't argue with that.
It’s actually, very, very relevant though.
I see it as the point where Modern Art and discussions of “what is art?” really start.
All that really matters is what an artist intends to be art.
That leads to, well who is an artist then?
Answer: anyone who says they are and who we all agree is one.
i.e. it’s an unsolvable riddle which will always be fun to debate amongst friends.
And that's my point really. It's a distinction based on definition. Collectively, institutions recognize this and inherently add qualifiers to distinguish between these varying disciplines.
A closer summary would be (selectively quoting from TFA):
> Photography is not objective truth. Photography and painting both result from deliberate choices of depiction, and there is no clear dividing line between them.
> [...] I argue that pictures are like stories that people tell with pictures. In short, perception is interpretation, and visual art is a construction made for perception.
Okay, let's be serious. I get to decide what art is for me, not you. By that, I mean I am able to make my own decisions.
Also, my original post takes no stance on the objective reality of the universe and the cosmos as experienced by the finite existence of the mind and self, inherent in the physical limitations imposed upon our feeble bodies by our finite sensory organs.
I simply find it distasteful to call something created with the click of a button art. Yes it can be beautiful, yes it can capture the highs and lows of humanity. And yes it can be thought provoking, represent artistic intention, years of learning lighting, composition, framing, etc, etc, etc. But at the end, I'd call it a photo, not art.
In fact, a single photograph may require a great deal of time and careful planning to execute (perhaps with a series of concept sketches, lighting plans, and so on to work out the compositional and logistical details).
For a photo, there might have been effort, but it was taken with a camera. I don't take art using a camera. I take photos.
Ie: I go into Minecraft and build something. That's art. vs. I go into Minecraft and take a photo of something that someone else made. That's a screenshot.
At this point it sounds like you are simply asserting, without providing an argument, that your position is correct. But I am unclear on what exactly your claim is: is it that (1) no photography is art or that (2) the photographs that you yourself take, as a rule, tend not to be art?
I am indeed asserting, without proof, of my opinion, as I believe we all should. This is my criteria for what is and isn't art: https://w0nder.herokuapp.com/posts/9fjM1tOJO7MWX4fYw3AU2Q==/...
Stop motion animation can't be art either because it is just a chain of photos of objects someone else made.
This is about a painter realizing that photography overlaps with reality distortion aspects as others arts
In reality all painting is distorted, abstracted, and stylised. That's what makes it interesting.
So when people believe this, it just means they aren't aware that all painting is abstracted.
Even if you change nothing else, composing something inside a frame requires creative choices.
And the point of both painting and photography is to manipulate composition, colour, tone, use of lighting, choice of subject, pose, narrative, and so on, to create an experience for the viewer.
In Art School we had a big debate whether a random 4x6 photograph pulled from their parent's photo drawer was 'art'. What we came to agree was, that if someone put that photo into a gallery and framed it, it would be perceived as art. Figuring out what changed, it was the inferred semiotic sign that an artist has bestowed on the object that changed it into art.
Then the next question is, is the art any good?
However, it most likely is the case that if an Artist intends something to be art, and no-one perceives it as such, its not 'good art'.
It's like if someone couldn't find a toilet so they just took a dump on a display toilet at Home Depot. Someone comes along and calls it art. They're wrong. That's just fecal matter.