Is photography an art form?

Yes it is. It is because anything can be an art form, an expression of aesthetics and emotion affecting the individuals who interact with it.  Creatively used everything can be a vehicle of an artistic expression. A garbage can, a stone placed on the concrete, mixed media and so many other combinations and possibilities. If not anything else, in that sense alone, photography is an art form.

Like any other forms, painting, music and so on photography also has it unique properties. A photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does. A common argument given against photograph as compared to painting is that ‘A photograph captures a moment in time in its actuality, whereas something like a painting or drawing, however accurate is essentially a rendering of whatever the artist chooses to see.’  I would agree that a photograph do capture a moment in time, after all it is a snap shot but not in its actuality. Reality is multidimensional; it captures what the photographer sees and wants to be captured. Every piece of photograph is subjective , as Rahgu Rai one of India’s leading photographer puts it "A good photograph is that which combines mind, body and spirit. It's a darshan in the most profound sense".

Like any form of art, photography also has its limitation. For a painter, his inability to capture a three dimensional world or even to perfectly trace the reality (in spite of the Dutch Masters of yester years) , for a sculptor to capture two dimensional world or a moving time frame, for a musician inability to promote the visualization of a scene. As photographers, it’s not easy to see anything other than what is in front of our lenses – can only photograph what physically exists, or what can be made to physically exist.

Then again photography is painting with light, be it the shadows or color. It is the light that you can control either via correct timing or through post production process. 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. Photographs, can be made, with deliberate conscious effort to get the correct lighting, whereby possibly hours have been spent getting the set up right; a relationship with the subject has been established and is evident in the final result. However there are also moments, where you are lucky and one can snap the photo of a instance that has light and everything related is perfect to what the photographer vision, and art is created in an instant. That is the magic.

It is because of this, and, as such, it’s not hard to see why some people can be very dismissive of photography as an art form. What people forget is that even to recognize the right moment one needs considerable technical, artistic skill and inspiration.

The beauty about photography is that anyone can be artist provided he or she has the vision and the urge within himself/herself to express it. Unlike many other forms like Music or painting, one will not need years of training to actually manipulate the instruments of the expression. As photography’s primary base is technology which like any technology, by its nature, will always evolve to make its usage easier.  In fact, with today’s auto-focusing, auto-metering, easy-to-use cameras, I have no doubt that anybody, with some practice, could take beautiful photos.

The creative process may or may not take time, the creation can be reproduced (making multiple copies) easily, a photograph can never be a one-off like a painting (unless of course you print one copy and then delete all traces of its existence!).So it is hard for people to see and artistic value in this form when it’s possible to make nearly identical copies of the same image, simple laws of supply and demand dictate that the more objects there are to go around, the less fighting over them ensues — and consequently, value falls. The magic of a photograph is somewhat lost when it’s posted on Twitter or Facebook five seconds after it was taken. However is the creation itself not unique in terms of individual vision and timing? It is, it is always unique as God created every photographer is distinctive human being, and that is what makes it an art, particularly if the vision and the choice of timing is truly artistic, emanating a true aesthetic appeal.

Photography has made creation of art accessible to everybody, so that the concept of an ‘artist’ as an inimitable individual gets diluted. Everyone has an art within him and is an artist. It is just a matter of will, and inspiration to express the inventive vision that one hold within itself. In fact it is no easier or harder, simply because some artists may execute their vision more naturally with a camera, some with words, or some with paint; to each his own. Proliferation of digital photography is a good thing, it brought many new photographers in the fold and made photography accessible to the poor. Talented people who wouldn’t have given photography a try will do so and all of us, the society at large, will benefit from general rising of visual standards. Probably a lot of people today would much appreciate as to how difficult it is to make a true work of art. Every literate person can write but not all can write poetry or fiction similarly everybody can make an image, but given the same gear everybody cannot take the same photo like a talented artist.