On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 10:15 AM Clifton Whittaker <[email protected]> wrote:

I finally decided to do some research to see if I could define the term "fine art photography".  It sounds a little pretentious but that's the way I describe my work on my tag cards at the gallery.  And,  my business cards say I'm a fine art photographer.  I think I've worked too hard developing my skills and techniques to have my images lumped in with "camera club photography".

I started looking first at websites, blogs, and tutorials by some very well known contemporary photographers.  They all produce excellent fine art photography and conduct workshops and/or classes to teach others how to do it.  But none of them define exactly what fine art photography is.

Inquiring minds want to know and since my business card says I am a fine art photographer I thought I should be prepared to answer the question, "What is fine art photography".

I finally found what I was looking for in Wikipedia.  There I not only found the definition I was looking for for fine art photography, but I also found it referenced to and compared and contrasted with several "types" of photographic genre, including art photography and artistic photography.  Furthermore, both of these last two terms were defined and separated into different categories.

There was also a list of reference books and scholarly articles which define fine art photography.  Some do it very well and some are a little vague.

There was also a definition of a fine art photographer as "those persons who create and distribute photographs specifically for 'art".

Anyway, out of all this information I decided to choose one definition of fine art photography and then use the other definitions as backup plan B for additional information in cases there are follow-up questions.  I was happy to see that the chosen definition pretty well coincided with my own so I didn't have to learn something new.  At my age simply retaining what I think I already "know" is enough of a chore.

"FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY:  is photography created in accordance with the vision of the artist as photographer.  Fine art photography stands in contrast to representational photography, such as photojournalism, which provides a documentary visual account of specific subjects and events, literally re-presenting objective reality rather than the subjective intent of the photographer; and commercial photography, the primary focus of which is to advertise products or services." 

That's it.

I think for Plan B Follow-up I will include "limited reproduction photography of images that provoke emotion, using using the finest quality materials and techniques that will outlive the artist".

If inquiring minds want more information that this they will have to find it somewhere else if we are having this discussion during my gallery exhibit.

I did find it interesting that "until the 1950s it was widely considered vulgar and pretentious to frame a photograph for a gallery exhibition.  …Prints were thus shown without any glass reflections obscuring them."  …."From the mid-1950s until about 2000 most gallery exhibitions had prints behind glass.  Since about 2000 there has been a noticeable move toward once again showing contemporary gallery prints on boards and without glass.  In Addition, throughout the twentieth century, there was a noticeable increase in the size of prints."

For my last show "No Shortcuts" I exhibited two dozen of my new images in frames backed by Foam Core but without glass covering.  These images were printed with archival pigments on Hahnemuhle Ultra-smooth cotton rag paper and I didn't want anything to come between the viewer and the beautiful transitional tones I had worked so hard to achieve.

Cliff