Is Photography art?

Do you know the sweet taste of freedom? Well, art is a scream of freedom...

Published in Just Urbane Magazine

The strong phrase “ART IS freedom” is commonly highlighted in a lot of quotes and writings. Freedom is about having the right to express a thought, a feeling, or a mood; no matter how one decides to do so. So then why do so many say that photography isn't art?

Art is about being free, it’s about being out of the box. In order to create art, artists must have the ability to think out of the box. It is almost a prerequisite. If photography is not a form of art according to the world, then I guess the world is still living in that closed box. And if you are in a closed box, how are you an artist?

Photography is a form of visual art, depicting a story or a particular thought. Just how paintings (considered an art form universally) use paint brushes and strokes to express, photography is just another medium that uses the play of light to create a composition. Being digital does not make it less important. Art is and always has been subjective, how you express it, with what medium doesn’t really matter. Back in time, in 1503 AD only the wealthy, powerful and those with status could afford portrait paintings. After sitting for hours a masterpiece was created. Today this same form of art is seen in portrait photography, saving hours and hours. This also made it available to the masses and even common man can afford it. The significance of something increases only with its acceptance, hence increasing its demand.

Photography is an art of making the best use of available resources at that moment and creating a piece. Well, yes they are made directly from real life but the more pictures tell you, the less you know. A photograph makes you travel to that place at that moment, maybe that you never noticed or never been to...that’s the power of this visual language ‘photography’. The language of fine art photography expresses imagery from strong imagination, where artists use photographs and the digital medium photoshop to create some unique images. Isn’t that a skill of its own? Photojournalists wait for hours and hours for that perfect shot and composition narrating a story or a feeling. Then why is photography not art?

Today, photography is not less significant in the major world art institutions and exhibitions, such as New York’s Museum of Modern Art and London’s Tate. At art auctions, photographs are sold for millions of pounds. The most expensive photograph sold in history is by a Landscape Australian photographer Peter Lik’ Phantom Photo at $6.5 million. If you still do not consider photography “art”, then think again. This time out of the box...