Is Photography Art?

Let's face it, even though most people might not question it, photography is often treated as an inferior art form. Somehow lesser than painting or sculpture, wherein something is crafted seemingly out of the ether.

I once had a coworker who maintained that Photography was not really an art form because the photographer could set up the camera, and then someone else could walk up and snap the shutter. Thus, making it their photograph, and more of a mechanical act rather than a true art form like painting.
 
This argument drove me insane. Especially because I was, at the time, getting my degree in photography at the Colorado Institute of Art. I was working this part-time job as a way to help myself afford the, even back in those days, very expensive photography program. Unfortunately, I found myself not knowing exactly how to respond to this person, despite my annoyance and disagreement with their point of view. Now, all these years later, I feel like my time and experience in the world of photography have left me better able to formulate my thoughts on this issue.
 
First, I would point out that there are numerous choices made by the artist long before the shutter button was actually pushed. The photographer, in the case of landscape photography, chose the angle to best view the scene, and the best way to arrange the elements of the composition within the frame. They made choices about which focal length lens to use, what aperture, shutter, speed, and how to properly expose the image. All this is considered before the shutter button is actually pushed. The pressing of the shutter button is simply a mechanical act, that records the image onto the sensor (or film).
 
Secondly, staying with the film analogy since that was the time frame of the original comment, a certain film was chosen because of its particular look or the final effect that the photographer wanted to achieve with the final printing, which itself was another set of choices altogether.
 
These days, after the shutter button is pushed, the photographer has an almost infinite variety of other choices to make and an infinite variety of ways to realize that raw image that was captured. Some of which used to be made by the film manufacturer or processing lab. These range from adjustments to color and contrast, to choices that may lead to a greater departure from reality, such as putting in elements that weren’t there at the time, or even cutting and pasting, bits and pieces of several images to make a new whole. All of this falls under the heading of artistry and craftsmanship in the discipline of photography. And different photographers make different choices.
 
The image at the top of the page is an interesting example. Because, while I had to work quickly as a summer thunderstorm was blowing in over the foothills just outside of Colorado Springs, I was leaning heavily on my years of experience behind the camera to quickly make composition and exposure choices. And afterward, in the digital tools I have at my disposal, I made choices to help me enhance contrast and bring out color in the sky. I try to do that with an eye towards reality and bringing out what was latent there in the raw image. Those are choices that I make based on my personal style as an artist, not based on what I believe is the “right“ way to make art as a photographer. Other photographers may have made different choices, and that is part of what helps create their personal style.
 
For myself, I have come to feel that my ability to craft what I want from the raw material of the images I capture is part of what helps set me apart from other photographers, and especially someone else who, while perhaps talented, is more of a novice. It’s part of the process that I enjoy, and I’m always gratified when I can take the raw material, the “unformed clay”, of the raw image, and form it into something that, hopefully, has some elegance and beauty. I don’t see this as violating the spirit of capturing the natural world that I encountered at all. I see this as practicing my art.
 
Make sure and read my related blog post “Do you Photoshop Your Images?”