Is photography art?
Some time ago, I was talking with Scaruffo about photography and whether it is art or not.
He said photography is not art simply because it’s photography. Instead, it’s a mean which can be used to produce art. So it’s the subject that’s art, not photography.
In my humble opinion he is wrong. Indeed, I think the subject is a mean and the photograph is the piece of art.
And the explanation to this can be very simple: a picture conveys emotions, it can express a message and, as you might know, a photo is worth one thousand words.
I don’t think photographing means stealing reality. Reality in ways is fictitious and the act of stopping it into a frame make it something real.
Plus, it’s not simply choosing an existing subject, it’s about creating something unique: the angle, exposition, cropping, etc. Each photo is different from another, even if a photographer photograph the same subject in two different occasions.
So each photo is a unique piece. A unique piece of art.
A photo can make me feel as a painting can do. This is why photography should not be considered less artistic than painting.
There are bland photos, as there are bland paintings. There are profound paintings as there are profound photos.
The artistry in a photo is not all in the subject. Indeed painting for century was what photography is now: it portrayed reality. And the painter interpreted the real world as much as a photographer does.
To me photography it’s one of the finest forms of art available.
Note to Scaruffo’s assistants: if you want to answer in name of Scaruffo himself, but don’t want to bother writing the comment in English, write it in Italian and I’ll then translate it for everybody to read.
Update: read what Scaruffo has to say about this.