Are Photographs Art?
A common point of contention regarding the nature and purpose of art concerns the status of photographic images. Are they art? Can they be? Can they be beautiful? Is that sufficient to make them works of art?To help address some of those questions I have started this page to provide some examples to illustrate what photographs can and can't do. While I certainly enjoy certain photographs and think they can have certain artistic elements in them (in the same way that decorative arts, technological designs and the architecture of buildings can) they are not, strictly speaking, art. The following (still under construction, unfortunately) collection of images can help to serve as a common point of reference for these discussions.
Interested to hear why I don't think that photography is art? Check out my Frequently Asked Questions page.
Lucy Ferry (1986) by Robert Maplethorpe (17K)
Untitled (1952) by Margaret Bourke-White of LIFE Magazine (49K)
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Lucy Ferry (1986) by Robert Maplethorpe (17K)
Untitled (1952) by Margaret Bourke-White of LIFE Magazine