Finding Art in Photography đź“·
Views on digital editing
Photography is a science. Photography is an art from. It is the recording of light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is putting a thousand words into one frame. It is really complicated. It is fairly simple.
Art is, but, human expression. I hope you agree with me on this definition as this is the basis for all comments that follow.
The birth of art happens in two ways:
- Art is envisioned, intended and then conceived by its creator.
- Art is sought, found and then perceived by a beholder.
It is important to respect and acknowledge art, irrespective of the nature of its origin. It is indeed a beautiful mind that is able to create or is in pursuit of art.
Right from the days of Aristotle and Euclid, Optics enabled the construction of a camera. However, true photography came into existence with the development of our ability to record the images generated by cameras. Physics and Chemistry gave us the primary means to do so. Very soon after, photography became a popular art form. This is because a photographer believed that the way in which he operates this new found technology and its resulting outcomes, such as new perspectives and points of viewing daily objects and subjects, were a product of not merely the science of photography, but also a convolution of his ideas and therefore an expression of his very being.
It is granted that in the early days of photography, a considerable amount of skill and dexterity combined with an imaginative soul would have been required for one to be a photographer. With due course of time and the evolution of technology, we have witnessed the simplification of this process. Technology is thus an enabler in the true sense as photography became a reality for any person willing enough to express himself through it. But, technology giveth and also taketh away. It certainly is no longer the day when photography was a niche pass time. With the advent of digital photography more people have access to photography than ever before. It doesn’t take a genius to predict that not all the photographs resulting from this technological revolution would find themselves described as artistically appealing.
Among other developments, there have been improvements in the process as well as the post production aspects of photography. All these techniques employ human skills to various degrees. For instance there is no taking away the fact that a photograph editor puts in a lot of hard work into what he does. And at the same time we can all agree that not everyone is capable of his feats. Therefore, despite being far from the conventional returns of photography, it is still an art form; he is also an artist. What we must all arrive at is the realisation that technology brings with itself new genres of art.
Another new concept in the photography scene is application of stock digital filters to photographs to achieve a stereotypical appearance or enhancement of the photographs. With the classic cameras, photographers made use of optical filters to distort the image in sight; in other words, with the technology which was then at their disposal. Today, these distortions are performed through a different enabling technology, one that we know does not have a linear cost to output curve; just like any digital technology.
In my humble opinion, these forms of photography also classify as art. Because art is, but, human expression. You and I may or may not appreciate these art forms. But the point to be noted is that they continue to remain art, regardless of our opinion. We owe this inference to a definition of art that we agreed to earlier.
Simply put, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.