What is Photography?

 

 Pencil of Light: McLemore Cove and Pigeon Mountain

Pentax 6x7, 105mm f2.5 Takumar lens, Fujichrome 100 film

(Click to enlarge)

 

What is photography? Is it a hobby? A craft? A profession? 

Is it art?

Are photographers artists? 

The answer to both questions is sometimes. Not all photographs are art, but some are. Not all photographers are artists, but some are.

Photography got off on the wrong foot at its birth, more than 190 years ago, because no one was sure just how it should be classified. Since it rendered three- dimensional reality in two dimensions on a flat surface, photography soon came to be regarded as a form of drawing, albeit inferior because it was achieved by mechanical and chemical means.  Most photographers accepted this evaluation unquestioningly and set out in great earnest to prove that photography could compete with the older media by producing work that looked like drawing, painting, or engraving. 

Part of the problem then and now is confusion of terminology; using the words medium and art as though they were interchangeable, when in fact they are not. Painting is a medium, as are sculpture, engraving, photography, and pottery.  When practiced at a high level of competence within the context of its own inherent qualities, each medium is a craft which may become art when imbued with an indefinable presence imparted by the being of the artist himself.

The essence of photography is that it is photographic. It is a picture made by the action of light reflected from something that has objective reality onto a sensitized surface. Light rays bouncing off something that is really there go through a lens and are recorded onto film, a sensor of some kind, or something not yet invented, but whatever it is, it is "writing with light." 

As distinguished from other visual media, the art of photography is primarily the art of seeing. A photograph is created at the instant of exposure, and nothing done to it afterward will make it art if it was not well seen to begin with. Throughout the history of the medium, the works that have had power, the works that have lasted, have been straight photographs. Furthermore, most of them have been documentary photographs. Their power and their art are in the photographer's ability to see and to present his vision in a tangible form.

So what about the photograph at the top of this post? Is it art?

 Maybe. Probably not.

Am I an artist?

Maybe. Probably not. But I always work with artistic intent and an artistic attitude. Other than that, I don't worry about it. History may declare that my photographs have staying power and that I was an artist, but I won't be around to receive any plaudits. So I make my photographs the best I can and am happy in the doing. That's all I can do. 

Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2021

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone 

Tags: Photography, art, art of photography, Pentax 6x7 camera, Takumar lens, Fujichrome film