What is "Fine art" photography??

[Rene Gr]

Chat GPT knows:

- snip -

Fine art photography refers to photographs that are created with the primary purpose of being considered works of art. Fine art photographers are typically focused on expressing their creative vision and communicating their ideas and emotions through their photographs.

Fine art photography is often distinguished from other types of photography, such as documentary photography or commercial photography, by its focus on the aesthetics of the image rather than its practical or informational value. Fine art photographs are often characterized by their technical excellence, composition, and use of light, as well as their emotional and intellectual impact.

Fine art photographers often work in black and white, and they may use a range of techniques to create their images, such as long exposures, multiple exposures, or alternative printing processes. The subjects of fine art photographs can be diverse, ranging from landscapes and still lifes to portraits and abstract images.

Fine art photography is often exhibited in galleries or museums, and prints may be limited in number and sold at high prices to collectors and art enthusiasts.

 

[tbcass]

I wouldn't consider ChatGPT a reliable source.

 

[philm5d]

Someone naked.

Don’t knock it. When I was a teenager, the “fine art” pictures in the U.K. magazine Amateur Photographer were about the only chance I had of seeing naked women!

Ah, happy days!

 

[tbcass]

Someone naked.

Don’t knock it. When I was a teenager, the “fine art” pictures in the U.K. magazine Amateur Photographer were about the only chance I had of seeing naked women!

Ah, happy days!

Photography magazines and National geographic.

 

[MyReality]

I have shown single photos and portfolios to gallery curators.

Deciding if a photo fits their gallery is exactly one of the things they do. They have an idea of what they consider "fine art" to be. Some will not accept snapshots, journalistic or editorial type of photos.

There are gallery types other than fine art that will accept the other types of photos.

 

[Guy Parsons]

I wouldn't consider ChatGPT a reliable source.

Yes, there's no way it could be considered to be a source.

It draws on stuff from everywhere and fails to note its sources. The source material could be right or wrong and it really can't tell the difference.

 

[Mumbling Macaw]

Hi, what makes a photo a "fine art" photo, and who is it that officially deems a photo as a "fine art" piece? In doing an image search for fine art photographs I can clearly see most are extremely well done. So what exactly separates a good image from a fine art image and who decides??

The answer is simple: fine art is everything you can place on your wall. If your photography fits that description - then it's a fine art.

 

[JohnSil]

I've always thought that fine art pictures are those where it isn't immediately apparent what the pictures are of. [Yes, I know that a preposition is something you shouldn't end a sentence with.]

Maybe that was true once, but nowadays Fine Art photography is mostly woke pictures of unfortunate people.

Don

What's a 'woke picture'?

Bob, I don't think anybody is going to be able to define a "woke picture" for you.

Unfortunately "woke" is an old term used within the black community to speak to awareness.

Today the term "woke" has been appropriated by mostly conservative white racist to mean anything they don't agree with put forward by any non-conservative group. It's become a rallying cry slur to collectively demean anything threatening to a conservatives way of life. It has nothing to do with photography!

John

 

[Tom Axford]

I've always thought that fine art pictures are those where it isn't immediately apparent what the pictures are of. [Yes, I know that a preposition is something you shouldn't end a sentence with.]

Maybe that was true once, but nowadays Fine Art photography is mostly woke pictures of unfortunate people.

Don

What's a 'woke picture'?

Bob, I don't think anybody is going to be able to define a "woke picture" for you.

Unfortunately "woke" is an old term used within the black community to speak to awareness.

Today the term "woke" has been appropriated by mostly conservative white racist to mean anything they don't agree with put forward by any non-conservative group. It's become a rallying cry slur to collectively demean anything threatening to a conservatives way of life. It has nothing to do with photography!

John

There is an interesting series of programmes on the word "woke" currently running on BBC Radio 4.

 

[JohnSil]

Nope. I'm assuming Fine art is a subset of Art. I'm not assuming that fine art is necessarily a proper subset of Art.

In other words, you are assuming that fine art might be synonymous with art!

Only for the purpose of going along with John's minor premise for the sake of debunking his major premise.

Very strange!

Just trying to avoid muddying the waters. Seems like you've helped me fail at that.

So how do you intend to determine whether or not fine art and art are synonymous?

I don't consider that to be the major problem with his assertions, as it is too trivial to bother with. I'm just trying to address his contention that there are only two types of photography.

I think that, as a minimum there are three axes: purpose, payment and quality.

On the purpose axis we have reportage and creation. On the payment axis are commission, sale, indirect compensation and unpaid. On the quality axis we have my work at one extreme and the masters at the other.

To me whether one is paid, and how, has only an indirect relationship to whether the product is fine art. That is, it is more difficult to become a master while relying on something other than sales and commissions from photography to survive, and i is mo difficult to survive on sale and commissions of photography if one doesn't produce a high-quality product.

JohnSil wrote....

"There are only two kinds of photography...., commercial and art.

Art is anything that is not commissioned for pay or hire.

Commercial is anything you've been paid to shoot.

You can call the art anything you want. Call it fine art, bad art, giclee, exhibition or collectible...., it's still art if it was NOT done for pay or hire."

I understand that people want to pigeon hole photography. If you want to subdivide Art into "fine art, ugly art or snapshots", be my guest.

There are very famous photographers that do photography on paid assignments so they can afford to then go out and do what they really enjoy, creating art/fine-art for themselves so they can sell, show or just enjoy what they really like to shoot and create. We read it all the time in interviews with big time photographers.

I didn't come up with those divisions on my own. They were taught to me when I was studying photography, that there were only two types of photography created, that for which you are paid to create and that which you create not being paid to create. HOW you divide it after that, whether they are terms you invent, a gut feeling or something some museum curator told you, all photography is either created for compensation or for our own goals, whether those are to show it, sell it or hang it on our own walls.

John

 

[JohnSil]

I've always thought that fine art pictures are those where it isn't immediately apparent what the pictures are of. [Yes, I know that a preposition is something you shouldn't end a sentence with.]

Maybe that was true once, but nowadays Fine Art photography is mostly woke pictures of unfortunate people.

Don

What's a 'woke picture'?

Bob, I don't think anybody is going to be able to define a "woke picture" for you.

Unfortunately "woke" is an old term used within the black community to speak to awareness.

Today the term "woke" has been appropriated by mostly conservative white racist to mean anything they don't agree with put forward by any non-conservative group. It's become a rallying cry slur to collectively demean anything threatening to a conservatives way of life. It has nothing to do with photography!

John

There is an interesting series of programmes on the word "woke" currently running on BBC Radio 4.

Thanks for that info!

John

 

[bobn2]

I've always thought that fine art pictures are those where it isn't immediately apparent what the pictures are of. [Yes, I know that a preposition is something you shouldn't end a sentence with.]

Maybe that was true once, but nowadays Fine Art photography is mostly woke pictures of unfortunate people.

Don

What's a 'woke picture'?

Bob, I don't think anybody is going to be able to define a "woke picture" for you.

Unfortunately "woke" is an old term used within the black community to speak to awareness.

Today the term "woke" has been appropriated by mostly conservative white racist to mean anything they don't agree with put forward by any non-conservative group. It's become a rallying cry slur to collectively demean anything threatening to a conservatives way of life. It has nothing to do with photography!

John

I did get a dictionary definition given by someone:

1 : aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)

I'm not sure how a picture can be 'aware and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues', but I would think that the photographer's motivation might be. What I'm left wondering, is why anyone would think that's a bad thing. Hasn't it been part of all art for a very, very long time? In fact isn't that awareness what elevates the best art from amongst all the stuff that's just pretty pictures?

 

[Cherry_F]

Apparently it’s a B&W image, with soft contrast:


Original


After applying Snapseed ´fine art’ filter

Not sure this will clarify this debate

--
Photography is so easy, that's what makes it highly difficult - Robert Delpire

 

[Mackiesback]

I've always thought that fine art pictures are those where it isn't immediately apparent what the pictures are of. [Yes, I know that a preposition is something you shouldn't end a sentence with.]

Maybe that was true once, but nowadays Fine Art photography is mostly woke pictures of unfortunate people.

Don

What's a 'woke picture'?

Bob, I don't think anybody is going to be able to define a "woke picture" for you.

Unfortunately "woke" is an old term used within the black community to speak to awareness.

Today the term "woke" has been appropriated by mostly conservative white racist to mean anything they don't agree with put forward by any non-conservative group. It's become a rallying cry slur to collectively demean anything threatening to a conservatives way of life. It has nothing to do with photography!

John

I did get a dictionary definition given by someone:

1 : aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)

I'm not sure how a picture can be 'aware and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues', but I would think that the photographer's motivation might be. What I'm left wondering, is why anyone would think that's a bad thing. Hasn't it been part of all art for a very, very long time? In fact isn't that awareness what elevates the best art from amongst all the stuff that's just pretty pictures?

Woke by the dictionary definition you have posted, well, I cant see a reason why people would argue about that. But woke has become an overused term to describe extreme levels of that, used in a variety of settings. Seems really common when discussing transgender awareness etc. It seems to have replaced the term PC within the conservative community.

 

[tbcass]

I've always thought that fine art pictures are those where it isn't immediately apparent what the pictures are of. [Yes, I know that a preposition is something you shouldn't end a sentence with.]

Maybe that was true once, but nowadays Fine Art photography is mostly woke pictures of unfortunate people.

Don

I don't think you have any idea what "woke" really means.

 

[bobn2]

I've always thought that fine art pictures are those where it isn't immediately apparent what the pictures are of. [Yes, I know that a preposition is something you shouldn't end a sentence with.]

Maybe that was true once, but nowadays Fine Art photography is mostly woke pictures of unfortunate people.

Don

I don't think you have any idea what "woke" really means.

If I carry on this discussion I'll get myself into trouble.

 

[Fragonard]

I was a real Fine Art photographer,I photographed fine art, Rembrandt Renior etc and

everything that you would find in a museum.

 

[Cherry_F]

[...] In the few other languages I speak it seems that you just "classify" photographic pictures in poor, reasonable, good and excellent pictures, regardless of how many minutes you have used to take the picture?

Good point. I don't believe there is an equivalent for "fine art" in French.

 

[JohnSil]

I've always thought that fine art pictures are those where it isn't immediately apparent what the pictures are of. [Yes, I know that a preposition is something you shouldn't end a sentence with.]

Maybe that was true once, but nowadays Fine Art photography is mostly woke pictures of unfortunate people.

Don

What's a 'woke picture'?

I assume they would call Dorothea Lange's image of the migrant mother a "woke" picture. Also, Robert Frank's book "Americans" is what they would call a "woke" book today.

Exactly WHO is "THEY"? LoL

John

 

[pmgnut]

I suppose fine art photography is like any other of the "fine" things in life- fine dining, fine cigars, fine wine, etc etc all subjective