Photography, is it an art or a skill? It’s an old question but also rather ridiculous, photographs can be both pleasingly artistic and require great skill in their creation, and then there are even some types of photography which require little skill and no artistic talent!
Modern cameras allow even the most fumble fingered to take great pictures without delving into instruction manuals, an instinctive artistic talent for composition & subject can start to create photos at the push of a button. At the same time today’s camera technology and software can help the less artistically gifted to create stunning results simply through learning and practising some few easy rules and methods.
Undoubtedly though, the best & most interesting pictures will come from those lucky people with both an artistic vision and the technical skills to realise their creativity. In such cases the most basic of cameras can be just as useful in the process of creating photos as any expensive and complex collection of equipment. If you know how to best use your camera, all that is needed is a little imagination to create interesting photos from any situation.
I’ve long thought that this mixture of art and skill aided by a knowledge & experience of the tools you have available suggests the most acceptable definition for myself is that taking photographs is more often than not, a craft.
So with this “photography as crafting” spirit in mind I’ve started exploring different ideas for sharing and presenting my photographs to compliment traditional prints. Taking inspiration from the wide range of crafting communities and techniques they use I’ve already gained new avenues of enthusiasm for my photographs which I hope to blog more about in future — to start with I’ve created a flickr set for my photo crafting.
But after all that is said and done, I think it’s important to note that photography has it’s special cases, not all photos fall into being works of art or craftsmanship. Probably everyone can think of snapshots without discernible artistic merit, taken with no apparent technical skill and very little creative input but which are favourites we will always enjoy looking at – simply because they remind us of a moment in time. Maybe what taking photographs really works out as is just plain old magic!
What about you, how do you consider your photography? Are you an artist or a crafsperson? Or do you share your photographs in any non-traditional ways or are well displayed prints still the best option for you?
