What is "Fine art" photography??

JohnSil said:

FingerPainter said:

Tom Axford said:

FingerPainter said:

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.

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

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

JohnSil said:

Very strange!

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

JohnSil said:

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

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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.

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JohnSil wrote....

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

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Repeating it doesn't make it true.

JohnSil said:

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

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Not true. There is photography that is not art that is not done for pay or commission: photography that seeks to document something, but has no pretension to aesthetic sensibilities.

JohnSil said:

Commercial is anything you've been paid to shoot.

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Which can be art.

Commercial is a category that covers a part of representative photography and part of artistic photography. Artistic and representational photography also overlap somewhat, None of these categories is mutually exclusive of the others.

JohnSil said:

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."

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No, not being done for hire is not what makes something "art", and being done for hire doesn't prevent something from being art. And tagging something with a label, doesn't necessarily mean the label is truly applicable.

JohnSil said:

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,

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If they sell the fine art that they produce. according to you it isn't art, because they sold it.

JohnSil said:

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.

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Ah, well that is a tautology. But that doesn't substitute "art" for "that which you create not being paid to create". and "non-art" for "that for which you are paid to create".OW 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.

JohnSil said:

John

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FingerPainter said:

JohnSil said:

FingerPainter said:

Tom Axford said:

FingerPainter said:

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.

Click to expand...

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

Click to expand...

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

FingerPainter said:

Very strange!

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

FingerPainter said:

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

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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.

Click to expand...

JohnSil wrote....

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

Click to expand...

Repeating it doesn't make it true.

FingerPainter said:

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

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Not true. There is photography that is not art that is not done for pay or commission: photography that seeks to document something, but has no pretension to aesthetic sensibilities.

FingerPainter said:

Commercial is anything you've been paid to shoot.

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Which can be art.

Commercial is a category that covers a part of representative photography and part of artistic photography. Artistic and representational photography also overlap somewhat, None of these categories is mutually exclusive of the others.

FingerPainter said:

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."

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No, not being done for hire is not what makes something "art", and being done for hire doesn't prevent something from being art. And tagging something with a label, doesn't necessarily mean the label is truly applicable.

FingerPainter said:

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,

Click to expand...

If they sell the fine art that they produce. according to you it isn't art, because they sold it.

FingerPainter said:

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.

Click to expand...

Ah, well that is a tautology. But that doesn't substitute "art" for "that which you create not being paid to create". and "non-art" for "that for which you are paid to create".OW 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.

FingerPainter said:

John

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I can't put it more plainly, if you are compensated in some way to create something then it's commercial photography. IF the person that compensated you doesn't have an exclusive right and you snap a pic for yourself, THAT one is art photography! Same photo taken for yourself without compensation, it now flops categories.

If galleries don't call it fine art, nobody will buy it! LoL

John

pmgnut said:

Hi, what makes a photo a "fine art" photo

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The photographer that chose it

pmgnut said:

, and who is it that officially deems a photo as a "fine art" piece?

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It can be deemed in how it is presented, it could be the whole piece of part of a piece of art. Hopefully the photo is cared for, before presentation.

pmgnut said:

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??

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a good image can be fine art, there is no exact here. The fine art image could be bad, or it could be an abstract one.

JohnSil said:

I can't put it more plainly, if you are compensated in some way to create something then it's commercial photography.

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I agree.

JohnSil said:

IF the person that compensated you doesn't have an exclusive right and you snap a pic for yourself, THAT one is art photography!

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It is commercial if they paid you regardless of whether they bought an exclusive right or shared usage.

I don't agree that it if you are compensated that it is not art.

Art and commercial are not mutually exclusive terms, as the history of fine art clearly shows. Much of the world's greatest fine art is or was commercial. It was commissioned, or it was created by the artist for the purposes of intended sale by the artist.

Are you trying to suggest that Rembrant van Rijn did not produce fine art?

I don't agree that is necessarily true that if you aren't compensated for it that it is art.

Somebody who used their cellphone to video an encounter with a police officer is probably not creating art, and they probably aren't expecting to get paid for it. So that is videography that is neither art nor commercial. They same can apply to photos taken to document something, like the state of repair of a building, or a soccer mom taking a photo of her five-year-old smelling a daisy in the field rather than participating in the game. It isn't art, and there is no expectation of commercial gain.

Art, commercial and documentation are three different sets of photos , each of which intersects with the others, but not to the extent that one is a subset of an other.

JohnSil said:

Same photo taken for yourself without compensation, it now flops categories.

If galleries don't call it fine art, nobody will buy it! LoL

John

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Rene Gr said:

Chat GPT knows:

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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.

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I think Gemmy Would-Binnendijk does a good job of demonstrating 'Fine Art Photography'.

White Forest:


Creating a painting with a camera:

Blind Bill said:

Rene Gr said:

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.

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I think Gemmy Would-Binnendijk does a good job of demonstrating 'Fine Art Photography'.

White Forest:

Creating a painting with a camera:

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As she says:
”A translation of what goes on in your brain and put that in an image”.
Indeed nice images!

Just sales talk lol

You can call yourself whatever you want, but that does not make it true. It just reflects your own biases. If you just live in your own bubble, you will have no credibility.

"Fine art" photography like other types of photography have characteristics. that peers and professionals can agree on.

Gallery curators are just one type of people that define it. They are just one type of gatekeeper.

Anyone who has ever submitted a photo for criticism will know that.

pmgnut said:

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??

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Having fallen under the influence of Marcel Duchamp, I’ll offer this: a fine art photograph is any photograph that is displayed in an environment in which fine art photographs are typically displayed.

bobn2 said:

JohnSil said:

bobn2 said:

D Cox said:

Redhenry said:

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.]

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

Don

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What's a 'woke picture'?

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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

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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?

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For the record, my original post and question has absolutely nothing to do with woke, woke awareness, or woke anything else for that matter.

pmgnut said:

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??

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The viewer decides if a photograph is art and/or fine art. The creator may have a divergent view.

A viewer decides if he/she likes the photo, not if it is "fine art".

JasonTheBirder said:

I think there is at least one fairly objective criterion and that is deliberate: I do think for something to be classified as fine art, every aspect of the photo should be deliberate. I wouldn't classify a lot of by bird photos as fine art because sometimes there are just elements there that I can't control. That's not a bad thing but at least it's some kind of criterion.

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The Solitude of Ravens is fine art.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/may/24/masahisa-fukase-ravens-photobook

TOTodd said:

pmgnut said:

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??

Click to expand...

Having fallen under the influence of Marcel Duchamp, I’ll offer this: a fine art photograph is any photograph that is displayed in an environment in which fine art photographs are typically displayed.

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My tribute to Duchamp

For the record, I shot this in Buenos Aires Water Supply Museum (Argentina). The same building also welcomes customers. So one can come to pay their water bill, fill in a complain,... and admire some "fine art" pieces.

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

As I previously mentioned, there is no equivalent in French for "fine art photography". However, we have an Academy of Beaux-Arts. Although "beau" only refers to aesthetics, in this respect, "beau" and "fine" can be considered to have close meanings.

beaux-arts academies are typical to Europe, I guess? France - a very centralised country - has only one, Italy has more than 15. I'm not aware something equivalent exists in America. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

in the beginning, "Beaux-arts" included painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving. Music was not included, as it was deemed as too much mathematical. It was added after. in France, photography was recently added (after 2000 if I'm correct).

Academies played various roles in history, but their members clearly had great influence regarding what was deemed fine and what was not.

Originally, "beaux arts" referred to arts whose intention was to emphasise a sensitive expression of beauty. Interestingly, activities like pottery were not considered as "beaux arts". As they have a practical use, they were classified in another category: "servile". Sub-servient, secondary, slavish.

Just drop the "ine" in Fine and there you have it. Mine are.

Cherry_F said:

My tribute to Duchamp

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Very nice! Further evidence that his urinal was the 20th century's most influential piece of art.

Cherry_F said:

As I previously mentioned, there is no equivalent in French for "fine art photography". However, we have an Academy of Beaux-Arts. Although "beau" only refers to aesthetics, in this respect, "beau" and "fine" can be considered to have close meanings.

beaux-arts academies are typical to Europe, I guess? France - a very centralised country - has only one, Italy has more than 15. I'm not aware something equivalent exists in America. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

in the beginning, "Beaux-arts" included painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving. Music was not included, as it was deemed as too much mathematical. It was added after. in France, photography was recently added (after 2000 if I'm correct).

Academies played various roles in history, but their members clearly had great influence regarding what was deemed fine and what was not.

Originally, "beaux arts" referred to arts whose intention was to emphasise a sensitive expression of beauty. Interestingly, activities like pottery were not considered as "beaux arts". As they have a practical use, they were classified in another category: "servile". Sub-servient, secondary, slavish.

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In Finland the main academy for arts is the "Kuvataideakatemia" (which directly translated would be "visual arts academy", although they in English call it "academy of fine arts". Nowadays the academy is included in the "Taideyliopisto" wich translated would be "university of arts".

And no, I have never even visited the academy, as my higher studies where in electro technics.

(However in high school we also studied arts a little, and we had the honour of first having as arts teacher one of Finlands more famous senior Painters (B. Carlstedt), and after him another, in Finland well known younger painters

Jahn

Cherry_F said:

TOTodd said:

pmgnut said:

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??

Click to expand...

Having fallen under the influence of Marcel Duchamp, I’ll offer this: a fine art photograph is any photograph that is displayed in an environment in which fine art photographs are typically displayed.

Click to expand...

My tribute to Duchamp

For the record, I shot this in Buenos Aires Water Supply Museum (Argentina). The same building also welcomes customers. So one can come to pay their water bill, fill in a complain,... and admire some "fine art" pieces.

Click to expand...

Getting off topic, but one place I used to visit in my days 40 years back as a computer fixer, the main guy I dealt with had an office overlooking a yard full of toilets just like that.

One lunchtime he wandered into that place and asked them "why the heck all the toilets?"

It turned out they made talcum powder and to make the talc go further they also ground up reject production toilets and added in the mix.

So think about it, when dusting your toes with talcum powder, you may also be dusting them with toilets.

Guy Parsons said:

Cherry_F said:

TOTodd said:

pmgnut said:

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??

Click to expand...

Having fallen under the influence of Marcel Duchamp, I’ll offer this: a fine art photograph is any photograph that is displayed in an environment in which fine art photographs are typically displayed.

Click to expand...

My tribute to Duchamp

For the record, I shot this in Buenos Aires Water Supply Museum (Argentina). The same building also welcomes customers. So one can come to pay their water bill, fill in a complain,... and admire some "fine art" pieces.

Click to expand...

Getting off topic, but one place I used to visit in my days 40 years back as a computer fixer, the main guy I dealt with had an office overlooking a yard full of toilets just like that.

One lunchtime he wandered into that place and asked them "why the heck all the toilets?"

It turned out they made talcum powder and to make the talc go further they also ground up reject production toilets and added in the mix.

So think about it, when dusting your toes with talcum powder, you may also be dusting them with toilets.

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Toilets are as clean as anything else when first manufactured, once used they are no longer viable for any other use. Regards. L

--
If you understand everything, you must be misinformed...