10 Reasons Why Photography Sucks and Isn’t an Art Form

The wishing well

2009-12-20 Update: This article is #1 in Google for “photography sucks,” so I see why it gets so many comments. Don’t take me too seriously. Photography is really an art form and I am playing devil’s advocate here. :smile:

“I wish photography could be an art form. I love it so much, but it’s just too easy. If only there were some way to mentally cripple the majority of the population from being able to take beautiful photos, or if I could make the craft so needlessly difficult to only be accessible to a tiny few. Maybe then I can trick others into thinking I have talent where there is none. Oh photography, why must you be so simple and uncomplicated!”

We’ve been tricked—all of us—into believing that photography is an art form requiring skill, talent, patience, and “the eye,” when outside of fairy land, it requires no more skill or talent than driving a car, or pushing buttons on an elevator. What kind of art form would have these ten traits?

1. Anyone can do it. While we’ve not proven the infinite monkey theorem for reproducing Shakespeare’s Hamlet, surely a monkey could take a good, interesting photo. In fact, with today’s auto-focusing, auto-metering, easy-to-use cameras, I have no doubt that a monkey, with some practice, could take a photo as good as Sunrays or The Red-Brick House. Do you like doing the job of a monkey?

2. No talent involved. You’re in a good place, you take a good picture. You’re in a bad place; you get nothing. It doesn’t matter if you have passion or willpower. If someone else is in the right place at the right time, they can easily capture the moment just as well, even if they’ve been handed a camera for the first time. You can’t say the same about any real art form, like playing the piano, or drawing, or sculpting, which require years of experience and practice.

3. No creativity. When you take a photo, you’re using a tool to save a copy of a scene. You’re creating nothing and the camera’s creating nothing. If the camera does create something, it isn’t art—it’s a defect. The more you protest that your badly-composed, out-of-focus pictures bear your unique artistic sensibilities, the more you satisfy your own delusions. Photography is about as creative as mowing the lawn (and if you think that’s creative, then you have my sympathy).

4. It doesn’t help you to look at the world differently, no more than painting, or sketching, or kayaking, or any other hobby. If anything, your view of the world narrows, because you’re stuck looking at it through your narrow viewfinder.

5. It’s an art that’s not a science, and a science that’s not an art. If my five-year-old sister can cover my job on our vacation to Disney world, then what kind of science is that? Normal scientific processes are torturous and difficult to master, like constructing a high-rise bridge or installing an Olympic-size swimming pool. Scientific arts like performing a complex piano piece or crocheting a beautiful sweater require years of expertise and practice. Not photography. Photography is for dummies. Then on the other end, we have b.s. science touted by the “artists,” like megapixels, lens optics, and sensor reflectivity. They have no idea what this stuff means, nor do they need any understanding of it to take pretty pictures, but they pretend it makes the craft complex, and their jobs, difficult and valuable. Kudos to the engineers, sure, but I’m not scientific as a mere photographer, any more than I’d be an auto mechanic for driving a car.

6. No future. You can’t make money taking pictures. If you do, you’re not an artist, you’re a businessman. Nothing more.

7. Life as a technician. You can’t get a good photo unless you Photoshop the heck out of it, like going from this awful thing to Leafy Droplets 4. Is that creative? My 10-year-old cousin can add some contrast, sharpen, darken the corners, and shift the colors with ease. If you put yourself through hours of this drudgery, you’re no more of an artist than the lab operator at Wal-Mart. A computer can easily replace you. How does it feel wasting your talent?

8. Strokes of luck. If you do capture a great photo that needs no editing, it’s because of reason #3. No talent whatsoever; you were just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, and disciplined enough to have your camera ready. So basically, your dependent on fate to bring you pretty pictures to photograph. Don’t you want to be in control of what you create, and when you create it? Do you like doing work that relies on luck, discipline, and drudgery, that you’re not even getting paid for? You may as well be digging ditches. At least then you’d be doing something useful for the world.

9. Join a community of morons. Maybe your smart and join a “camera club.” Then, you get to hear a dozen other people complain about the delay of Nikon’s latest DSLR and make excuses why they can never be a good photographer until they have *insert lens here*. Then they’ll complain about how they can’t attract any money. Maybe if they’d add something real to the world, they’d have the money to buy their toys. If you’re a photographer, you may as well be playing the latest World of Warcraft game.

Or perhaps you’re particularly dedicated and follow your passion to a photography university. Then you get to spend four years and thousands of dollars on the dead art of film, while hearing old codgers whining that the youngsters have it too easy nowadays. You may as well learn Latin. If you want to be a professional photographer, take a business class. But you’re condemning yourself to a lifetime of slave labor. If we had today’s photography before Lincoln’s time, then slaves would be photographing our children’s birthdays and recording our weddings. Why? Because slaves were forced to do tedious, boring, uncreative work.

10. You’re a dime a dozen. You’re building no legacy, you can’t pass your business on to your children, you work on assignment for pennies, and anyone can replace you at anytime. In what other artistic field can anyone do exactly the same work you do, with no talent nor experience? Read rubbish like Is Color Photography an Art? with any spirit of inquiry, and you can see what fools we are.

“Okay, so since photography is really nothing, we’ll give it some class. Only photography done on expensive, time-consuming film is art. No color nonsense—that’s too much like the real world. Digital doesn’t count—it’s missing the needless drudgery. 35mm? Are you crazy? That’s the easy way out.”

Can’t you see how dumb this is? If photography was an art form, we wouldn’t have millions of pages debating the subject. It would be plain and obvious. The very existence of a debate proves that photography as art is shaky ground to stand on. You don’t see anyone debating painting as an art form, or protesting the Mona Lisa as uncreative.

“The color photographer has many means of bringing expression into a scene; the selection of camera position, lens focal length, use of filters, depth of field, film type, exposure, composition, and shutter speed all figure into the image that is produced. During printing, the color photographer has control of contrast, density, color balance, and saturation to convey personal expression.”

Oh puh-lease. “The cashier has many ways of being creative at the check-out line. She can express herself by scanning your groceries swiftly, grouping them by color, double-bagging at her discretion, and suggesting candy bars and periodicals. She has control of the conversation, by making friendly chit-chat or working without delay. Through the artistic medium of words, she has the potential to positively influence hundreds of people every day.”

At least cashiers don’t delude themselves thinking they’re at the pinnacle of artistic expression and can change the world. Perhaps we aren’t so lucky.

Photography is fine for what it is: a pseudo art form for talentless hacks. But don’t give it more respect than it deserves.

217 thoughts on “10 Reasons Why Photography Sucks and Isn’t an Art Form

  1. this is the easiest piece of shit to debunk in my life.

    1. no they cant, i see shitty photos all the time, i can draw stick figures but that doesnt make me a drawer.
    2. back to number 1, a lot of people suck at photography
    3. a lot of creativity, many techniques you can use with your camera if you are skilled enough, many ways to manipulate the intake of light into your camera to change what the picture looks like.
    4. photos show you places of the world that you may never have the chance to see. including things that make you realize how lucky you are to have the privilege to be able to use the internet right now and other pleasantries.
    5. learning how to use a camera and tons of other equipment that go along with it is no different than learning how to do anything else.
    6. irrelevant
    7. who says photoshop isnt an art of itself. real photographers keep a shot as natural as possible, but thats the great thing, creativity, do whatever you want! thats like someone coloring a horse neon green! nooo dont dare do that!!!
    8. yes you have to get lucky, but you have to control your own destiny, sitting in your house all day on the couch wont get you an amazing picture of a sunset. you have to take fate into your own hands and go out there and get a shot.
    9. irrelevant
    10. all art forms are a dime a dozen moron.

    all in all, you are very dumb. fee free to E-mail me responses do not reply on here as i do not plan on coming back.

  2. I think this post was actually a great beginning to a potential series of posts about this topic. A lot of bloggers pretend to understand what they’re talking about when it comes to this area and most of the time, hardly anyone actually get it. You seem to understand it however, so I think you need to run with it. Thanks a lot!

  3. So okay, others have said your article is a joke. Pretty funny, huh? Pretty funny if you take the wind out of the sails of some aspiring photographer who thought he was having fun, thought he was learning and enjoying himself. That, sir, would make the joke hilarious.

    And congratulations, you have taken positive points – how “anyone can do it”, for instance – and made them incredibly negative. I hope those who read your article won’t give it the time of day. Amazing how you can take what people world-wide have tried to do through magazines, websites, and blog forums, what people have spent thousands of dollars on in print and equipment, and somehow turn it all against them with just a few paragraphs.

    If your goal was to get lots of comments you have succeeded. If you were trying to inspire someone, congrats on that too because you have singlehandedly inspired me to stand for the opposite of your words.

    • if you where really into photography you wouldnt care enough about this page to get angry like you are, and would probably say “haha, some people actually do think its that easy, thanks for that eastman kodak!”

  4. LOL i can’t believe how many people are taking this so seriously and really think you believe this. Too funny

  5. No wonder you’re bidder homey, your photography is just snap shot photos. Nothing but a passing glance that doesn’t get me excited whatsoever. Leave the real photography to the experts son!

  6. I’m an Art Education student studying photography as well as sculpture and painting. I’ve worked in numerous mediums and each one has it’s own definition of hardness. Photography is an art, it’s being doubted so as one now because of the advent and popularity of digital photography. Working in a darkroom and making correct exposure and lighting choices is definitely on the same level as creating a painting or creating a sculpture. I find it completely ridiculous that you compare microwaving food or collecting coins to art! I’m sensing from your negativity towards photography that you probably have had a lot of doubts into your own photographs. If you don’t like photography and you think that it’s a waste of time, then don’t study it and ridicule it!

  7. Let me start by saying I agree with this article completely, in fact I would take it further.

    I’ve been a photographer since I was 14, and I’ve won a major annual award in a major US city to purchase 15 of my pieces of $7,500 so I’m in a position to say what photo is art and not. I’ve sold work to private collectors etc.

    When I made that work, I was following the likes of Uelsmann in the darkroom, and doing composites, and printing to Cibachromes. The process was poisonous (ciba poisoned the Rhine river with chemicals famously in the 90s) but it yielded glass-like prints that people still marvel at, even if an older painter I knew told me and I agreed, that they were far too reflective, as in a mirror of the person standing there. They would’ve made more sense as art that incorporated the viewer. Anyway, they yielded rich colors, and are still lightfast 20 years later.

    When I shot slide FUJI film, I was automatically ahead of the vast majority of amateurs.
    Since the advent of digital, however, everyone’s basic quality has rocketed upwards, although most people are still hack photographers. However, what I’ve personally discovered is that I’m tired of compositing images together. They never merge as seemlessly or with as much originality as if you painted them from scratch. You want to spend 5k to get a 48 inch wide giclee printer with 1k per toner recharge to peddle giclee/inkjet prints to arts organizations that flat-out WILL NOT BUY THEM. And I dont blame them – they’re not unique, and they’re not rare. Noone knows how many editions an artist will put out or how long they will last. You can say each print is unique, but they don’t know. My painter friend calls them color copies.

    Now that’s not to say they don’t look beautiful well done. I think they look great, especially well-framed, and I’ve sold some, and you can hand-sign them, but they are just considered worthless by the establishment. I guess you could say screw the elites, but it’s also an untested medium for durability, although the archival time is being ‘tested’.
    Regardless, no gallery or collectors I know respect or value them as much as paintings, PERIOD.

    Back to the issue of the imagery itself, I find myself marvelling at paintings, and handmade work. I saw some Wyeth that just floored me. The size and the technique were astounding. The complete control of composition and color, and the important part, a PERSONAL brushwork style. Photos are pixels…THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME. Like the author mentions above, it’s being in the right place and the right time, or freezing the fast moving that matters.

    The multiple shots of one person in the same photo was a great idea at first, but now its just another gimmick. Photo art is all about gimmick, just like putting a crocodile head on a bird. And to all those people churning out the bw nudes and the landscapes, please stop. You are so unoriginal and I knew Mapplethorpe and Horst and Newton had finished off those arenas when I was 22. I knew that was a completed area from the start. You’re not gonna beat their silver prints or their Leica and Hasselblad work, or more importantly, their reputations.

    I’m not saying there aren’t niches that someone can work, like Goldsworthy, but I think in general that a well-developed painting technique can yield more satisfaction and reputation and sales over time. Everyone knows what cameras and pshop can do. You gotta try harder.
    I think there are channels in photo to swim, but then I look at a Vermeer or a Sargent painting, I just think photographers are a bunch of hacks.

    Photography at best tickles your curiosity and you think great shot or great opportunity. Painting or sculpture is interpreted 3D while photo is mechanical 2D. R. Crumb is not a photographer – he’s a magnificent unique personality. There are painters out there making work and selling it and getting real chops. It’s like sampling vs playing an instrument.
    It’s being a great guitar player or great at guitar hero.

    Bottom line, no photo beat Dali, Breugel, Bosch, or Boticelli. Photo will always be with us, bringing us the next great place we werent present at, but its time as art is over.

    The feeble protestations people post here wishing their easy sleazy photo garbage, and trust me, I’ve seen so many bad amateur photo shows, its makes me hurl. Grow up and get some real technique. Try to sell some prints to the world when China can dump a million of the best studio decor or landscape image in history on the market. Go try to sell your hack work on a stock site for $5. They wont even take it. You know zero.

    • LOL, yes I agree wholeheartedly. Also, science has answered all the important questions, music is just tirelessly repeating itself and, sorry, but painting? SO 16th century! I mean, puh-lease! Do something that hasn’t already been done by DaVinci, Michelangelo, or any of the renaissance artists! More modern artists, while producing seemingly interesting techniques and new takes on painting, are just copying what has already been done and adding their own cheesy little gimmicks. Cubism, surrealism, expressionism, all interesting at first, but really they’re nothing more than cheap tricks. The still life has been DONE, give it up. Nudes? Gratuitous at this point. ANYBODY can draw a picture, and even a child can color it in. Put your crayons away, kids, find a new medium! Painting has been dead for centuries.

      In fact, why pursue art at all? There are only so many emotions and only so many contexts in which to display them. It’s been done! One can conceive of nearly infinite ways to express these things, can come up with an endless array of gimmicky media formats, but its all the same useless drivel. “Oh, the human form is beautiful!” “I feel so alone!” “Love is important!” “Sociopolitical forces have aligned in such a way as to affect people in a certain manner!”… sure, I agree, but so what?! What are all these people really saying besides “Look at me!”?

      Ah, but where was I? Right, photography. You’re just inserting yourself into an interesting place and pressing a button. All these people who work to manipulate lighting, who play with different processes, even those who hire models, build sets and create a photo from the ground up are just ultimately pressing a little button on a machine that then does 99% of the work for them. Does their work speak to people? Does it convey emotion? Does it have something unique to say? Who cares? Like I said, art has been done, and photography isn’t even art. As for those people who DO just insert themselves into interesting places, well, I have very little to say to them. Sure, they may have inserted themselves into a place nobody else cared to go, sure, maybe they chose to frame a known or familiar place in a manner that invites people to see something in a way they never would have before, maybe their image even successfully and intentionally conveyed a powerful emotion, but to what purpose? People say somebody else COULD have done it, but nobody else DID. People say that any number of people could recreate famous paintings, but the point was that somebody had to conceive of it and that the revolutionary aspect was in the artist actually doing so. People also say that the point is to make people fell something. Well, those are good points… but they’re still just pressing a button. Don’t you all see that? A BUTTON!

      Bottom line- anybody can take a picture, photos share specific characteristics, creating a photo follows a generally defined process, there are many poor photographers, therefore photography is not art. Now, the real question is whether or not these facts apply to other “art forms” as well.

    • I have to agree with this article, Mal Quat & JJ. A camera is just a recording device, if I record a singer singing in the street am I the artist for pressing the record button? If I took a picture of the statue of David am I the artist? If I photographed horrible events during a war would the images be art? I would be like a recording engineer or a journalistic photographer. However, I do believe one can use photography as a tool for creating art. Someone made a comment that art is created with the hands & that is not completely true. There are many things in nature that can be considered art which probably makes people think they are an artist because they captured the image. Like nude photography, a beautiful subject & you call it art. That’s OK, it’s natural beauty so it invokes some emotions for some people. Now for Mal & JJ to tell people to stop nude b/w photography or painting just tells me you’re both full of shit! Art is NOT about reinventing the wheel. I too have been into photography since I was around 12 years old, behind the camera and in the dark room. I have also been able to draw very well since I have been a very young child. I do not consider my photography as art, not even my artistic b/w nudes. They are just documented images of nude women that other people call art. There are people now creating beautiful images like Newton & Horst who have never even heard of Newton & Horst. They don’t want to hear you say it’s finished. Mal, you seem to tooting you’re own horn by name dropping very respected ancient artists while discouraging potential young photographers. There may not be any photos the blow away the artists you mentioned but there sure is hell some modern artist that blow them away. You guys obviously have appreciated some art, very predictable art especially JJ, DaVinci, Michelangelo? there are kids these days that have these skills, you speak as if it is futile to pursue art. People enjoy these activities whether you & I think it is art or not. It’s like telling them to stop having sex because it’s already been done. So the bottom line is you can be an artistic photographer or a photojournalist, if you’re going to call it art then make it art don’t just take a picture of the beautiful sunset & say I’m an artist. And as for you Mal & JJ, stop sucking you’re own dick because Ron Jeremy already did it in the 80’s!

  8. Wow….you really did play the devil’s advocate with this article! I’m surprised that the people who sent you angry responds didn’t see that line.

    Being a Fine Art major in painting I can see where someone might think like that, but us photographers (I’m also a photographer with published works) should be able to know a “lark” when we read it. I love taking pictures then turn them into paintings just to see the difference between the two. Some have a very good likenes and people can’t believe that they were from a photo that I took…lol!

    It’s funny that I came acrossed this while researching articles for my History of Photography class…I was looking for someone who was against photography being an art form, and boy did I find it! But at the same time, I know the concept of “counter arguments.” I really did enjoy reading your article and ALL the comments, some really amazed me at how defensive people can get! As for looking at your photography site, well, it’s broken so I couldn’t comment on your pictures.

  9. I have been doing photography for quite some time specializing in fine art and let me tell you if you guys think it is so easy why not post some of your work the truth is most of you wont be able to take a descent photo if it presented itself in front of you and for those morons that have 5year old proffesional photographers as siblings dream on or seek help because you must be delusional. have a special day retards

  10. Nick,
    learn to spell response, and that didn’t even make sense. Stop clicking links on my facebook. hahah

  11. I agree with you about the digital, but it takes skill and a good eye to get a good photo with film. Any fat tourist can take a snap of the Taj Mahal but if you have real talent and passion you can made a sheet of paper come alive and dance in a photograph. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, and you’re just ignorant to the skills that it takes to chemically capture a moment in time.

    • I Agree 100%. They way you wrote this made me get the impresion that you hate anyone with a camera. And in responce to Nolan, his photos are awesome, not just luck.

    • “but if you have real talent and passion you can made a sheet of paper come alive and dance in a photograph”

      Bullshit. Using “artsy” expressions isn’t making photography seem like more than what it truly is: a pathetic excuse for art.

  12. did you paint the picture at the top?
    did someone paint your wedding photos?
    Try using an SLR on manual mode and take a photo if you think it’s so easy and requires no creativity.
    If you think that photography can’t let you see the world in a different way tell me how you can zoom in on things from the same distance with your eyes?

  13. Photography majors like to feel special with their pictures, and want to consider their pictures art. But a person with real artistic talent can draw and paint an art piece; a piece from the depths of their mind. Photography is an art, but an easy one, and I don’t consider photographers “artists.” To snap a beautiful photo doesn’t take tremendous talent. You can’t look at a beautiful photo and say it is just as much class as a fine art painting in a museum.

    • Your a moron, its funny how you say that photography is an “easy” art form. What makes it so easy? Answer that question.

      • Dude, can it. I’ve taken pictures my whole life, and know most of the techniques of taking a strong photo. There are rarely great photos, but none as great as a great painting. Its not easy to explain why, but it’s fact. You’re wasting time in a medium that is done, and you do it because it’s easy. End of story.

  14. this article made me laugh. too bad it didn’t ruin my day. i’m an aspiring photographer btw. wish you luck. :smile:

    LOL

  15. Snap shots anyone can take, but you still have to capture the moment correctly. Professional photographers have to learn an awful lot about lighting, dimensions etc. and there you do need to know what you are doing when you are taking photos in a studio for example. Photos can be so beautiful and only a few can consistently capture the best moments with right technique.

    • even though it’s an art form, it is an easy one. everybody can do it

  16. This article is moronic and insulting. I don’t know if the photo at the top is supposed to be an example, but that is a terrible photograph. A photographer is absolutely an artist who can create different visual compositions and effects using light and chemistry, color composition, and structural composition. A photographer can use different cameras, shutter speeds/apertures, types of film, paper, chemicals, toners, filters, lights… to attain countless creative combinations. One can even get involved in the physics and engineering of photography (which can get as complicated as to involve algebraic mathematical equations and geometry) Not to even get into the skill and practice that it takes to shoot quickly and efficiently with time limits and in possible hazardous situations. The esthetic possibilities (attained through the photographer’s creative process) are endless, as are the scientific facets of photography. I’m not talking about point-and-shoot with a digital SLR, I’m talking about a real, trained skill involving talent and practice and a substantial time investment. Photography is both and art and a science. The person who wrote this has NO idea what real photography is, and should concentrate his/her time doing more productive things than bashing something about which he/she CLEARLY knows NOTHING.

  17. PLEASE ADD MY POST!

    You do have some valid points, however, can you imagine the world without photography? There are some great photographers, many of whom have risked their lives in places such as Vietnam to tell the story, long before tv. however, there are many amateurs in this game who with the latest Nikon thinks their the next Richard Avedon.Digital has much to blame, give these GWC’s an old manual camera and they’d be lost!!!!!!

    I’m guessing at some point this person who wrote this thread either had a negative experience at art school, or feels that his photography was better than the crap that art school laps up. Between the lines this person feels a sense of injustice or seeking acceptance.

    The funny thing about photography taught as an art form is that the pictures are usually crap- like fine art really. Then the ‘artist’ has to resort to theory, quoting boring books by Susan Sontag or Roland Barthes Camera Lucida to sound clever. The scene is full of blaggers who fail to realise that The Mona Lisa is famous because of 2 reasons: (a) no one knows what it means and (b) it’s painted with a high level of technical skill that even now not many can achieve.

    In my 4 years at art school I have not once seen many inspirational pictures by peers, but have indeed heard plenty of excessive wind. Debate, I thought photography was visual. The most sucessful photographers, film makers in the world got there by doing, not talking. No one would say a bad thing about Star Wars for example.

    The liberal art scene is mostly made up of failed artists who became part time teachers, writers or otherwise yet another lefty, who preaches solidarity whilst daddy actually pays the rent. These talentless jerks really have nothing new to say other than serving up last nights reheated pizza with a dollup of mayo, otherwise known as ‘post modernism’.

  18. There are some great photographers, many of whom have risked their lives in places such as Vietnam to tell the story, long before tv. however, there are many amateurs in this game who with the latest Nikon thinks their the next Richard Avedon.Digital has much to blame, give these GWC’s an old manual camera and they’d be lost!!!!!!

    I’m guessing at some point this person who wrote this thread either had a negative experience at art school, or feels that his photography was better than the crap that art school laps up. Between the lines this person feels a sense of injustice or seeking acceptance. The funny thing about photography taught as an art form is that the pictures are usually crap- like fine art really. Then the ‘artist’ has to resort to theory, quoting boring books by Susan Sontag or Roland Barthes Camera Lucida to sound clever. The scene is full of blaggers who fail to realise that The Mona Lisa is famous because of 2 reasons: (a) no one knows what it means and (b) it’s painted with a high level of technical skill that even not many can achieve.
    In my 4 years at art school I have not once seen many inspirational pictures by peers, but have indeed heard plenty of excessive wind. Debate, I thought photography was visual. The most suceesful photographers, film makers in the world got there by doing, not talking. The art scene is mostly made up of failed artists who became teachers, or otherwise another liberal, who preaches solidarity whilst daddy pays the rent. These talentless jerks really have nothing new to say other than serving up last nights reheated pizza with a dollup of mayo, otherwise known as ‘post modernism’.

  19. (dreamotters2003@yahoo.com)
    Photography’s success has always been it is cheap, easy, and exact, and it has many uses. Like all art, be it writing, sculpting, or painting, it is an expression of the artist. If you want to call a photographer nothing but a photographer, there is still one thing that makes them an artist. They created this as art, no one else is responsible for it, it has no other purpose.

    My sister, totally untrained, can take better photos than any photographer I’ve met. It is funny how a flash on a “35mm” digital camera can make photos awesome. But… I can take a cell phone camera and make a high-resolution panorama of the forest in winter. But… she is an artist perhaps, and I am a simple photographer. The problem lies with, if you don’t consider photography an art, then what do you consider it? These snapshots which I would gladly hang on my wall in place of a Van Gogh?

    You, of course, know the difference between a guy that “paints houses” like Bob Ross and a guy that “paints houses” like Bob Villa, one is an artist the other is an engineer. But if you “photograph houses” and want to call it art, you have to separate it from someone that likes to “photograph houses” and print them in the classifieds.

    So what makes a photo a work of art? Not the photographer… but the observer. Surely DaVinci made drawings that were simply used to explain what something looked like, and did not have artistic reasons behind it. But his designs were art, even if the drawing wasn’t, but if the drawing was beautiful, then is it art also? It is a complex inquiry, but I think we need to allow photography to be art. Simply labelling everything photographed as photography, would be too simple and lazy, and dangerous.

    I would hate to lose art because we can’t define it concretely.

  20. oh yes, i shall now commit photographer suicide and shoot myself in the head with a camera.

    i suggest you go fuck yourself with a knife, sir. photography is most definitely an art. sometimes in fact a photograph is nothing more than a prepared canvas that goes through photoshop and comes out as something completely different. sometimes it’s just capturing the feeling of something, and sometimes its just letting the world see through someone else’s eyes.

  21. I disagree! Photography is an art and photographers are artists. How else can you explain their ego?

  22. What a load of rubbish!

    This point doesn’t make sense.

    6. No future. You can’t make money taking pictures. If you do, you’re not an artist, you’re a businessman. Nothing more.

    Thats exactly the same for any art form.

  23. It depend on the concept behind the photograph
    that’s my opinion

  24. I read your comments and could not help but feel that you were being somewhat ironic and that it was not to be taken too seriously. This debate has existed for years, decades actually. the truth is photography is in of itself NOT fine art. Quality photography does take skill, and technique; mastery of that which you can control and being at the right place and time can actually fall into that by intentionally being there. There is still however that portion of luck that is undeniable! Why is it NOT fine art in the traditional sense? Well in general photographers do not build their cameras and media from raw materials themselves whereas true artists constructed their canvases and all blend their colors. Photographers manipulate an image of an existing thing, true artists bring into being that which existed ONLY in their mind before, weather it be a painting or a symphony or a sculpture. Now in defense of photography, not all paintings are Art either, many are nothing more than decoration offering no insight into the human condition or any kind of self expression but merely something that goes well with the drapes. A piano player that does nothing but learn existing pieces of music can easily be replaced by a roll of paper with strategically placed holes put into a player piano, paper not smart like monkey but paper not poop on bench! Photography can come very close to being fine art in that via the camera and film or digital media the practitioner can produce provocative work that expresses a view of life or of the human condition in a way that the viewer has not yet seen, just like (place any true artists name here) What really blurs the line is the “painters” who photograph a scene to paint from! In conclusion art is possibly more about it’s effect on the viewer than how it was made per see, and lets not entirely discount serendipity, after all there was only one lucky sperm cell that conceived you.

  25. I love how each of the other ten reasons could be levvied at any other form of art such as painting.

    What a ridiculous and stupid article

  26. well… *shrugs* there’s always two sides on every view of things…

    p.s. Rad is my real name

    • Cool, I use my real name on everything too. Now you need to get a website and paste the URL in my “URL” field on future comments.

  27. Let’s put you in a dark room with flashy lights and a moving crowd and see how well the auto setting takes a picture of that. Oh, wait.. you’d have to LEARN what settings are appropriate. The Art Museum oh Philadelphia had an exhibit of the art of children. Paintings and such, mostly just tossed paint onto a canvas by five year old kids. They sold for tons of money. But I guess they’ve used those five delicate years to master their craft as well..

    • Irrelevant. Let me give you a microwave without telling you the wattage rating… therefore you’d have to use trial and error to discover the best heating times and thus using a microwave is an art form? Pish posh.

      • Don’t you use trial and error to figure out how to best shade a sketch, or sculpt a statue?

      • This guy does not know anything about the photography or photographer!
        Sorry to say very poor guy once I see your photos, and you have been in five years…..

  28. Richard, you are a very strange man to say the least and you don’t understand or appreciate art, not just photography but any art. Maybe I can help a little. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the word Art means: “Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.” So, if you take a photograph (landscape, portraiture, fashion, commercial, etc and spend hours, days, weeks or longer working on it either digitally by altering the original image or working in the dark room with film, you are in fact creating an art form. Whether you or anybody else will appreciate it is a different story. You can’t make everyone like what you do and you can’t deny that.

    To continue, why do you even bother with photography and always carry a camera around if you don’t really care for it or appreciate it. The only thing I can say is that you take photographs simply for memories. If that’s your intention, then you are not creating art because according to the definition you did not alter anything. On the other hand, if you carry a camera around because you want to capture something that you consider either interesting or beautiful and you spend a lot of time composing it, working on it and altering it until you come up with a final image. At an instant when other people appreciate your work and are willing to spend a lot of money for it then you have created an art. The same rules apply to painters, sculpturers or any other artists.

    One of your earlier quotes: “You could wire up a camera to a joystick with a button and have a monkey manipulate it to take a beautiful photo. You can’t say that about sketching, painting, pottery, masonry, computer graphics… the list goes on.” I can’t beieve you said that and what’s more I totally disagree. For starters, I would like to see a monkey taking a picture. Give SLR camera to a street person and they would have no clue how to take a photograph. You consider drawing and sketching an art form and yet everyone can draw and sketch. Children age 3 can already do this at school. Now, most likely it’s not going to be a beautiful drawing or a sketch but it will be one a drawing. Do you then consider children artists because they can draw? How is that different from taking a photograph?

    Why don’t you take a look at these two links of not so famous photographers (there are many better ones) and still tell me that monkeys can do it better.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/larsvandegoor/

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/dimitridepaepe/

    I also hope that you don’t delete this post like you did to someone else just because you didn’t like their answer. Good luck to you with wathever you decide to do in your life!

    • Oh I’ve given an SLR to a street person. He just point and shot! Of course the picture was over-exposed and out-of-focus because my lens has focusing issues and I had the exposure bias up… but he was able to take a picture.

      Drawing is a learned skill just like operating a camera or riding a bicycle. A medium’s artistic efficacy has no basis in its accessibility. You could say collecting gold coins is artistic because they are very expensive and not many people can collect them, but that doesn’t mean anything.

  29. You’ve been looking at the wrong photographic work. Most of what you’ve probably seen is photography used as a design medium or imitative work being presented out of context of the original body of work. It’s simple to make a beautiful photo of anything and if you make enough photos you might even get a “Gee Whiz” moment, but that’s not where the art lies. You need be looking at bodies of work in which the photographs create context and build meaning. The best work asks more questions then it answers. I’d recommend putting down the Ansel Adams books and looking at some work that was made in the past 10 years. I’d suggest Allan Sekula or Cathy Opie for starters. For reading, try Roland Barthes.

    • I looked up those two ‘artists’ you mentioned. Neither one is an artist. Both are photojournalists, and the work of both made me yawn. It’s in that vein of ‘I’m going to prove how grounded an art photographer I am by doing the most mundane work possible, the purest slice-of-life photojournalism. I wont use pshop or do anything in a fantasy mode or from my imagination. I will be as dead a rock as possible.’ I’ve seen A LOT of this style and A LOT of galleries show it, printed old darkroom style. It’s a return to photo purism away from pshop. I understand why, because people have seen the horrors of pshop work. Unfortunately, pshop is the newest, most innovative tool of our time, so they’re going in a regressive direction back to work that was already done better before. Nothing wrong with documenting our time, and making good pics, but that’s what news photogs are doing. I’m as tired of this narcoleptic trend as every other in art photo.

  30. You are a dumb ass! You know nothing about photography! It absolutely is and art form.
    There are photographers that make over $300,000 a year easily.

    If you don’t think it’s an art form and it’s so easy, try getting Nike to hire you to shoot their next advertising campaign.
    Let’s see if you can land an assignment from Architectural Digest.

  31. basically i agree with you. and for some time, and some years as a photographer, i have tried to put my finger on the empty feeling ph leaves me with. i bought some paintings in an auction some months back – quite a lot of $$. they are beautiful, some old some new some good some modest, but they all have life and energy and you cannot not stare at them as you walk past, or come down for breakfast. i do not believe any photo will ever do that. in fact the one or 2 photos which i would consider as art (where the photog as gone to extremes to get/create a pov – eg. andreas gursky ) i would not want on my walls – they leave me a little depressed – because they seem to be simply poor-mans-art – live scenes abstracted through tricks of the light into wannabe paintings. most of the photos that jump out at me momentarily have me hoping that they are in fact paintings or drawings … did you ever try to draw/paint etc? some of mine are a bit like that at flickr.com/instamatique after the dogs and stuff.

    • I look at the photography at the Southeast Museum of Photography at Daytona State College and the work of the photography students at my college and a lot of it seems… hedonistic. Women wearing skimpy clothes staring at the camera, disheveled portraits, dull stuff. A lot of it seems depressing. I don’t know why people take pictures like that but it’s been the “state of the art” for a long time. You can’t get an A in a photography course with portraits of people smiling.

      Anyway photography has been my primary art form for 5 years and I have a nice portfolio, all nature, bright and uplifting stuff, nothing depressing. Same goes for my pictures of people. I wrote this article on a whim to poke some holes in the photography scene. It’s not meant to be taken seriously, although some commentators have cussed me out.

      I tried drawing three years ago, but I basically copied photos:

      http://richardxthripp.deviantart.com/gallery/#_browse/traditional/drawings

      Don’t give up on photography, but don’t become conceited like many photographers do. It is *much* easier than painting.

  32. THANK YOU for writing this article. I thought I was the only person on Earth that can’t stand photography/photographers. Unfortunately it’s been growing in popularity, which means all of a sudden every 10th friend on Facebook has a JOHN DOE PHOTOGRAPHY page. This also means you can’t even enjoy a decent outing with your pals anymore without at least one idiot creeping around you with an SLR the whole time. Can’t we just enjoy the moment anymore? These so called “works” by photographers are so incredibly inauthentic when compared to what we see/feel/experience in real life. Especially scenic nature shots… why do you need to change colours/lighting/etc.? It destroys the purpose of capturing nature’s beauty because it isn’t even natural anymore. All you need is a simple point-shoot camera, enough light, and maybe 1-2-3 smile.

    • This is an unusual post. I wrote it over a year ago and it was about what you’re saying, but nobody noticed it at the time. Now I’m starting to get some hateful comments finally (not yours). Of course the article is meant to be one-sided; I’ve been a photographer for 5 years and have a big gallery. I’m really criticizing myself here.

      Now, there is more to what both of us have said, but there’s a lot of truth to it. You just need a point-and-shoot camera. I did my best work with a tiny, cheap camera. But people want to ASSUME good photographers have good cameras to ABSOLVE themselves for taking subpar photos or doing subpar editing themselves. It’s all a pissing contest.

      I used to be that “idiot creeping around you with an SLR the whole time.” I don’t do it now, but if I’m going to take a picture of a group I bring my SLR. I just don’t take 100 photos a day like I would two years ago. Now I take 20. That isn’t many. If you take photos all the time instead of getting involved, you will have NO FUN. Leave the camera at home sometimes.

    • Its great to take pictures of you and your friends when you are young, or your family because you really enjoy that stuff when you get older. That said, I have to agree that people at concerts are driving me nuts, shoving their cel phones or cams up for the ENTIRE show to make what is basically a shitty copy. THe companies may never make the sound better because it will hack into their own touring acts. THey dont allow it at the symphony or theater. IT should be stopped at concerts as well. I used to shoot concerts, but NOONE CARES. Photographers think someone wants their pictures. NOONE DOES. Publications dont pay that much anymore. Maybe you can get an in-house job for a label or a band, but give it a rest already.

  33. okay what the hell is wrong with you? photography is not just about clicking a button and getting the first thing in front of the lens…it is about seeing and imagining what could be there and making it come out that way. if you are a real artist you would know that. also, getting a good picture is not just being in the right place at the right time…an artist can be anywhere at any time and get a beautiful picture just out of pure talent and imagination.
    you may think that photography is an easy, talentless, waste of time but you better learn what you dont know about photography before you start to diss it. understand this, if you want a photograph to be art you must learn what makes art, art and photography has as much of a chance as any other art to be considered a fine art.
    its not the tools that make the art, its the person behind the tools that creates the view.

  34. How can you be this narrow minded? Thousands of people make a living off of photography, the covers of Time,Vouge,and Entertainment magazine don’t just shoot themselves. Those photographers have dedicated their lives to understanding the relationship of light as it enters a lens, aperture, shutter speed, not to mention understanding studio lighting and equipment all takes time and is a skill set very few people poses. This listing was more of a rambling in which you tried to degrade an ART FORM which has been around since the late 1800’s… Shame on you sir, shame on you.

    • Don’t you just love this article? It still gets a lot of hits over a year after I published it.

      I’ve dedicated my life to photography, too. I’m bring us all down! :cool:

  35. Sure, better equipment with auto-everything makes taking a better photo easier. Sure there’s plenty of prentious nonsense in the hobby and in the industry and there are a lot of windbags who value their work way too highly.

    However you should have named the article “10 pieces of evidence that sensationalist drivel gets attention”. To say there’s no art in it is nonsense. 10 photographers will cover the same event and there will be very little commonality in how they capture and post process.

    If you believed what you were writing you’d find a different profession.

    • If they’re good photographers, it will be close. The photos will be more similar than you think. I don’t think anything you say has been field-tested.

      If I write only about my beliefs, I will run out of stuff to write real quick.

  36. Pingback: 10 Reasons Why Photography Sucks and Isn 39 t an Art Form | Outdoor Ceiling Fans

  37. Who says that Art has to be hard?
    If it transcends a thought/feeling/view or communication that makes the viewer think twice (through the visual), than how could it not be art?
    The camera is a tool just like the paint brush or spray can.
    Anyone can take a photo, only few can make a piece of art with a camera.
    Im sorry but if your a photographer and you honestly belive that photographs can’t make you look diffenety at the world.
    – your in the wrong profession
    – your an idiot
    – you haven’t seen any real artist photographers work

    sorry for the harsh words… i think they could of been a lot harsher

    • Can a five-year old take a good photo? Easily. Does it matter if it’s very artistic and he doesn’t know it? No. The ends are the means in art. If you create something beautiful and you don’t know if it is beautiful or why you created it as such, that does not negate its beauty. In photography, this is further magnified, because it can be done by anyone. You could wire up a camera to a joystick with a button and have a monkey manipulate it to take a beautiful photo. You can’t say that about sketching, painting, pottery, masonry, computer graphics… the list goes on.

  38. you are 100% correct sir. the only way to get good photos is with a fat wallet to get a nice camera. well done.

  39. uh. you’re retarded. or apparently don’t know anyone with/without real talent/creativity.
    I certainly know people who can’t take a half-decent photograph to save their lives (myself included), and people who get an amazing picture almost every time they press the shutter button.

    And if it isn’t an art, than neither is painting. Wait, you said painting wasn’t art. *looks at Van Gogh* Sorry buddy.

    *Looks at Picasso* No, not you either.

    *Looks at ceiling of Peter’s Basilica* Damn you non-art! How did you get up there?! Some hobbyist must have painted that non-art all over the ceiling!

      • Well I read all the way thro the comments and smiled and agreed at most of what you had to say. But do you really believe that Picasso and Van Gogh painted crap? Granted Van Gogh struggled to draw realistically but Picasso was a brilliant realistic artist, try googling his early academic works. You could almost mistake them for art / photographs. His modern style ( cubism, etc) came with experience.

  40. Fantastic! You are spot on. Found your page via Google (“photography sucks”); you were #2.

  41. You are an extraordinary photographer, and a great presence in this world. Keep going with this non-art form.

    • Thank you very much; I won’t give up. I always keep a camera with me to photograph what I see. I printed some copies of this so I can give them out, and then when people ask me what I do, I’ll say I’m a photographer, and they’ll be surprised. Ha ha. :unsilly:

    • “This guy doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about”

      Ummm, not really. This guy’s a photographer himself :)

      Although his article is a bit embellished, he has some pretty good points about photography.Cheers.

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