The Photograph As Fine Art By Graham Clarke

Photographs have been circling the world for years now . There are many different types of cameras, but only some have changed and revolutionized the world. The history behind them and the history it has captured throughout the years has impacted the world in numerous ways. It is very important to know how certain things like lighting and angle affect the outcome of photographs. To be able to capture a perfect photograph one will have to understand how lighting , angle , third rule affect a photograph. Not only are there different types of ways to take photographs but different types of photography.

Although it is argued the use of photographs are not as diligent as traditional art forms such as painting or sculpting, it has opened up a whole new breed of art; which documents and “captures, instantaneous fleeting moments”. Photography gives a take on perspective that cannot be captured by hand and because of digitalised nature of the media, allows the photographer or film-maker an almost unlimited amount of versatility through editing. Francis Firth called the use of photography “an attribute” I very much agree with him. The use of photography has been a prominently useful tool throughout history, many artists used photographs to capture a scene or portrait to be draw or painted later thus extending their time-scale. I have used photography and film in my own work. I find

Art is a great way to show passion as well as emotion and thoughts. There have been many great visual artists and there still is today. Art has been around for a long, long time and will continue to be in our community for many more years to come. Art is created in many ways and is admired in different

Alex Kotlowitz met Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers in 1985 while working as a journalist. He was interviewing them for a photo essay in Chicago magazine on children living in poverty. The violence that occurred every day where the brothers lived in Governor Henry Horner Homes, or Horner, disturbed Kotlowitz. Lafeyette and Pharoah are 12 and 9 years old at the start of the book but have experienced more than many kids their age. The boys did not seem sure of what life held for them. Lafeyette told Kotlowitz, “If I grow up, I’d like to be a bus driver,” Lafeyette was not sure that he would grow up at just 10 years old (x). Kotlowitz wanted to show what it is like for children growing up in urban poverty after seeing the brothers’

My MYP project topic is Photography. I am researching photography because it is a subject that really interests me and that I enjoy. Photography falls under the global context of Personal and Cultural Expression because it is a form of art and a way for people to express their creativity. Throughout this MYP journey I hope to become a better photographer and explore more of Washington D.C. Some questions i’m trying to answer for this project are, What are some restaurants in D.C that are highly favored? What are some cool places I should visit in D.C? How can I become a better photographer?

Although civilians of the Western developed countries are fixated on the profit of entertainment media, John Cole’s illustration creates an understanding of the lack of attention towards starvation, dehumanization, and poverty in under-developed peoples.

Photography has come into existence due to the evolution of the renaissance craft, which often involved the artistic creation, and documentation of occasions, figures, and memories. Photography as a practice that consists of so many different styles and techniques that vary in regard to the school of photography being used. For example the Pictorialist thinks of photography as a type of fine art and therefore try to make it artistic by using pictures or visual images, which furthermore establishes their point that photography is an art or a form of fine art, on the other hand the Modernist has adapted to the modern techniques which has more focus on the sharp center of the image and using the camera as an instrument rather than seeing it as a canvass which is usually how pictorialists see it, and they also believe in creating very high quality images which

As skeptical moderns, we often have trouble accepting drawings or paintings as historical records, but we tend to believe in photographs the way that we believe in mirrors; we simply accept them as the truth. Alexander Gardner's photograph Trossel's House, Battle-Field of Gettysburg, July, 1863 might therefore be viewed as evidence rather than commentary. Unlike some of Gardner's other "sketches," this picture includes no perfectly positioned rifles, no artistically angled river, no well-posed men in uniform—indeed, no people at all. The photograph's composition could barely be more prosaic; the horizon slashes the picture in half, and the subject, a white colonial-style house, sits smack in the center. Yet this straightforward, almost innocent

The photograph is a very powerful medium. The French painter Paul Delaroche exclaimed upon seeing an early photograph “from now on, painting is dead!” (Sayre, 2000). Many critics did not take photography seriously as a legitimate art form until the 20th century. With the

Photography serves many purposes and since its invention people have used it for many different reasons, but mostly for

left and right side are movie posters, one titled El Aguila Blanca (The White Eagle) and

Memories can be as short-lived as the moments that created them. The recollection of events and the deterioration of memories over time is a constant process that cannot be stopped. This inevitable passing of memory is fused to the inevitable passing of human life. Emily Davis’s still life photograph of wineglasses is reflective and fragmented, allowing the image to act as a metaphor for this fleeting aspect of memory through its own memory-like qualities. The photograph is also symbolic of the transience of human life through the use of the traditional symbol of the wineglass, ultimately serving as memento mori.

Photographers involved in this technique look at photography as more of a true artistic impression than as anything else. The argument compares an artist using brush, paint and canvas to create a work of art, while the photographers use a camera, film to do the same.They see the camera as a tool, like a paint brush that is used in the creation of art.

In Roger Scruton's Photography and Representation the author establishes the idea that ideal photography is not art. In the same breath he says that ideal photography is not necessarily an idea which photographers should strive, nor does it necessarily exist. Yet, he bases his argument upon the ideal. In reviewing his paper, I’ll take a look at why he painstakingly tries to make this distinction between ideal painting and ideal photography. His argument is based upon the proposition that photographs can only represent in a causal fashion, whereas painters create representational artwork via intentional relations. Scruton manages to create a solid argument, but in the end I’ll decide it is not a fair assumption to say that photographs

Until recently, at least, it was possible to define photography as a process involving optics, light sensitive material and the chemical processing of this material to produce prints or slides. Today though, that definition is subject to change. Technological innovations…are shifting photography from its original chemical basis towards electronics… It is not overstating it to say that the advent of this new technology is changing the very nature of photography, as we have known it. (Bode and Wombell 1991)