What Makes A Photograph Art?

[JAS_Photo]

I do not have a lot of time right now to really go into this but I want to show you something.

Here are some photos submitted to another forum. Technically, they have a lot of problems but overall they have a real nice eye appeal. I have gone back and looked them over many times. I could suggest lots of ways to make them technically better and the photographer could go back and get some real nice shots. But would they really be better? Artistically, I would say no. They already make me look at the subject and think about the various elements of the photo. The vibrant colors make you appreciate the sunny day they were taken on. Anyways....

Here is the link:
NYIP Photo Forum • View topic - Sunny Saturday in SoHo

What do you think?

[Marko]

Hmmm - not crazy about 1 and 3 at all. 2 seems interesting compositionally but way too oversaturated for my taste.

In terms of what is and isn't art....I don't know. i only have an opinion. These images are not screaming art to me in any way.

[kat]

Ha ha..I saw this earlier and I thought..hmmm. The photos didn't do anything for me. To be honest, I saw them and thought of how I was when I first got my camera. But is it art..sure. Eye of the beholder right? My 3 year olds scribble is art to me.

[ericmark]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I know but I feel the old bike is just an old bike and they are not the sort of picture I would want on my wall.
Well maybe the centre one Graffiti but that's not the photographer that's the work of guy with spray can.

As to the general question what is art.

Here in UK I have just taken my AS level Art exam in Digital Photography and really it should have been called Photoshop CS4 as near whole course revolved around the use of Photoshop.

When I referred to selecting the same scene as Turner the Lecturer asked who Turner was. He could name loads of Photographers but seemed to consider and other medium as not being art. Could quote 1/3 rule but refer to the surd and golden ratio 1.618 then he adopted a blank expression. Comes to something when the maths teacher knows more about art than the art teacher!

Or maybe not many of the Roman, and Greek artists of the past were also mathematicians and architects. Turner also wanted to be an architect.

Sorry but some of the modern art strikes me of the emperor has no cloths mentality and viewers will not say what they really think as they may be considered as lacking vision.

Leonardo da Vinci's paintings are often used to show Golden Ratio and he was also considered as an architect, and engineer. So likely he realised exactly what he was doing and when the last supper is shown split into sections which fit the Golden Ratio likely he designed it to do just this.

Most of us are not so clever and it is more intuitive how we crop and present our images. I am sure one could take interesting pictures of a train showing the connecting rods and cylinders that many would find wall space for. However the scene enveloped in smoke as steam to my eye is more pleasing. Although as yet I have not the skill to capture the scene.

I think pictures can be divided into categories
Personal interest i.e. your children, family holiday
Technical i.e. picture of damage before repair
Artistic i.e. you would frame and hang on ones wall also in that must be the picture one would hang around hospitals, offices etc.

I have been disappointed with my own work. However one tries to make macro photography artistic is hard. Technical interest yes but idea of a flies leg blown up to A4 does not seem to be something one would want on ones wall. Yet close-up with bee in flower is something else.

As I said at start Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A picture of the concrete press which I designed the control for may be of interest to me but would be boring to anyone else.

[Kawarthabob]

just goes to show ya they will sell a camera to anyone.

[Ernst-Ulrich Schafer]

Seems like the images are missing now.