luminosity wrote:
I don't think you have much experience with fine art photography if you think that (as you clearly do). Where I come from, photographers spend years putting together bodies of work, sometimes using unusual materials and/or processes to do so. It's time consuming, demanding and requires a great deal of commitment and knowledge, among other things.
As redisburning said, try duplicating a photo to a masterful level by painting the same exact subject. An artist starts the process by choosing the size and building your own stretchers for the canvas you will be mounting. Imagine how much time and energy a painter expends to develop the same body of work for a showing as a photographer -- it's almost incomparable.
Sorry, but I don't think you have any experience at fine art painting. Do the test: take a simple picture, then try to duplicate it with paint. Then tell us which took longer and was more difficult to achieve.
And just to be clear, I'm not making any judgement as to which art form is "better" or more personally rewarding. At this stage, I put most of my energy into photography, not painting.
It seems that you are talking about different things. Jim, you are talking about the time taken to do a single image. AmbientMike is talking about the time spent in total putting together a body of work. I think you are both right.
In my own experience, there is more emotional energy expended in creating a painting than a photograph. A large format inkjet print can require a lot of emotional energy as well, if there is a lot of time spent in Photoshop, and more than a few preliminary prints made.
I kinda relate film to vinyl records; still a healthy market for vinyl and more high end turntables than ever before but it's fringe now and always will be. That's not saying its bad, worse or anything negative (pun intended!) but it is inconvenient, messy and slow. I would also suspect that majority of film users are scanning to digital anyway.
String -- That's my feeling too. In most cases, film is ultimately just a different form of digital capture, based on its final outcome these days. It is a rather cumbersome and time consuming capture method, and consumers have ultimately voted to move to digital and gut the film industry. I really don't see much true photographic film work done any more. By that, I mean planned photos and developing along the line of the Zone System for B&W, then the same intensity of work with wet printing methods.
Carsten -- I see your point, but a painter must have a body of work to show to galleries and customers. So if each painting takes longer and is more expensive than a print, and the same number of finished pieces are necessary in both fields, I think my point is still made. Another thing is that often photos are offered in limited editions, and that is simply how fast the printer will churn out additional copies, once the the settings are satisfactory. Paintings are each one unique, unless copies are made like prints, but then we are talking print making, not painting.
I'm not trying to denigrate photography, or suggest it is easy to produce a masterful body of work in this field. It's just a discussion of relative effort, and ultimately perceived value to buyers and representatives.
IMO this is the only relevant point in the "why art buyers prefer paintings" discussion. Art buyers want to know that someone else doesn't show up with something identical.
Oh, come on there can't seriously be anyone who thinks that photography requires as much skill as painting? Really? Give the average person a camera and I bet a reasonable percentage could take a decent landscape photo or portrait within a week. Give the average person a brush, some paint and a canvas and I doubt you'd see anything decent for a year.....or ever! Look, I love photography, but painting is entirely another level of difficulty - by the way, I can't paint (wish I could though).
The turn this discussion has taken illustrates a bit of why fine art photographers simply don't care much about the technical side of things. Most are far more interested in content and putting together some kind of coherent body of work and/or concept. Many art photographers I know don't know all that much about gear and just use what they have around or can afford. It's more about saying something than taking technically perfect images.
Technically, painting is obviously much more difficult. Artistically, photography has a high degree of difficulty, on par with any fine art.
A painter starts with a blank canvas, but has the ability to defy physics to create an image. I am partial to Manet's "A Night at the Folies Bergere" as an example:
A photographer simply couldn't take this image - it's not physically possible.
Both mediums have difficulties/challenges in creating both a compelling image and an image the image creator envisions before starting. Comparing them is a futile exercise.
corposant wrote:
Both mediums have difficulties/challenges in creating both a compelling image and an image the image creator envisions before starting. Comparing them is a futile exercise.
bold title with little justification. lomo is the only brand of film cameras you will see at the mall so I commend them for that. and it is a nice easy introduction to film.
rattymouse wrote:
What laws of physics do painters defy?
Look at the painting I posted - the reflection of the figures in the mirror wouldn't be physically possible in a photograph. Basically my point was that a painter can do anything with a blank canvas, whereas a photographer can only capture what's in front of the lens, so it's fruitless to compare the media.
corposant wrote:
Look at the painting I posted - the reflection of the figures in the mirror wouldn't be physically possible in a photograph. Basically my point was that a painter can do anything with a blank canvas, whereas a photographer can only capture what's in front of the lens, so it's fruitless to compare the media.
I dont think defying the laws of physics is the best expression to use but I get your point. Painters transcend the limitations of a camera.
Another aspect of this debate is that oil paintings last so much longer than photographs (especially color photos). Even the most ghastly oil painting may last well into the next few centuries. An accomplished photographer working with C-prints could see his work fade within his lifetime. So a photographer's "body of work" may be gone in 50 years.
While, in my opinion, Ansel Adams was not an "artist", he was a craftsman. As such, he cared about his materials and processes. So, his "body of work", because he was a craftsman, may last well into the next century, even longer. As a result, by then, he will have become an artist. Many modern artists, working in newsprint, or cardboard, or other ephemeral materials, couldn't care less about craft, but only about their vision or message. Unfortunately, their message only lasts as long as the materials survive. If they cared more for craft, then their message might survive, but then the message becomes influenced by the craft.
That's sometimes true, carlitos, but the best printers know how to deal with some of those limitations. Use the right paper and storage material and your prints will be okay for a long time. That's true about C-prints, but even then, proper care goes a long way. Of course, that's not the case for everyone (and in fact, not true for most photographers).
I'm pretty confident that Mark Klett's still be around a long, long time, and in close to the condition they were when they were printed (just to take the work of someone whose work I know).
Your points are well taken, though. Some artists are fine with the idea that their materials fade away, and indeed, that's the point for many artists. For others, it is unfortunate and the opposite of what they desire.
