The Decisive Moment

I got talking to my mate Jason the other day, about our kids and how they handle a digital camera. We both commented how, in spite of being only five years old, they have both surprised us by taking interesting photos with a simple point-and-shoot camera, seemingly without any real effort.

It occurred to me that it isn’t actually in spite of being only five, but precisely because they are only five that they are doing this. Nobody has taught them how to compose a picture; they simply look at the little screen on the back of the camera and when they like what they see, they fire the shutter. Okay, so I realize the picture above is not about to set the art world on fire. My point is not that our five-year-olds are brilliant photographers, but that they have a brilliant attitude towards photography.

Of course, my son has plenty to learn about the technicalities such as exposure and focus, but he can learn that when he is ready. For the moment at least, he can let the technology take care of all that while he concentrates on looking for things to photograph.

Sometimes I think we tend to over-analyse what we do. Be a kid - if it looks good to you, take a chance and take a shot. Maybe you will capture something better than you were expecting. Maybe you will expand your horizons a little. Who knows?

I was doing a bit of browsing - as you do - and came across the oldest example of a permanent photograph. If you click the image above you’ll get a large version to look at.

It was produced in 1826 by French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. The photo is called, “View from the Window at Le Gras” and took eight hours to expose.

It’s remarkable that not even two hundred years have passed and yet technology has advanced so much that we can now not only create images with thousands of times more detail but can go from pressing the shutter release to having a processed and printed image in seconds.

If you’d like to know more about the history of photography check out this great entry on Wikipedia.

We’ve been discussing the recent controversy surrounding one of Nan Goldin’s photographs that was recently seized by police from an exhibition due to fears that it might breach pornography laws. We ended up asking if the work was even really art or just a snapshot. This got me thinking about what constitutes art so I thought I’d write a post about.

So what does count as art? Well my trusted Pocket Oxford English Dictionary says, ‘art – n, 1. the expression of creative skill in a visual form such as painting or sculpture. 2. paintings, drawings, and sculpture as a whole.’ Well I guess that should include photography too (goes to show how old my dictionary is). So by definition it doesn’t really matter what I paint, draw or photograph or indeed how I go about doing so, it can all be classified as art.

I don’t think that’s a good enough definition though. I think art needs to be more than that to be called art. Surely for something to be art there aught to be some sort of expression within it or at least some sort of meaning to it, and not just that, but a meaning or expression that the artist intended to be in there and is in someway communicated by the piece.

Is the definition of art a personal thing? Often I’ve heard people say that something isn’t art, seemingly just because they don’t like it, so is the reverse true? Can something only be art if you like it? There have always been artists who have challenged our perception of art. Artists like Andy Warhol and more recently Damien Hirst, to name just two, have created pieces that have caused uproar within society. Does this mean they can’t really be considered art?

Is the question answered by the subject of the piece? For instance is a photograph of starving children in a war torn country taken by a news reporter art? After all the primary function of the photography here would be reportage. The most important thing is that the photograph offers a realistic portrayal of the situation. Is it even wrong to call it art? If it isn’t wrong to call it art, isn’t it at least disrespectful to the subjects of the photo to consider it as such? Would a photographic reproduction of Constable’s “The Hay Wain” support the opposite argument?

What counts as art for you?

An experiment

If you would, take a look at the photo above. I took it a few years ago and at the time I had every intention for it to be labeled art. I won’t share with you what I think of it now, but I will when the results are in. Is it art? Let us know what you think, leave us a comment.