What is a fine art photograph?

Gitzo

Here I thought I was the only guy who took pictures of turkey vultures ! Where I live in western Indiana we have a lot of those guys; it's a good thing we have so many too, because we have about 25 to 50 deer-car collisions every day in the county; if it wasn't for all the turkey vultures, we'd be up to our necks in dead animals in no time. Every time we go to Terre Haute (24 miles), I always see a few "run-over" ground hogs and possums laying on the road, so I always stop and throw 'em out in the field so the "buzzards" can eat their lunch without risking their lives; this always creates lots of "yack,yack, yack" from the new bride, as she's deathly afraid of "germs", so now I have to carry a shovel in the back of the "Cube" so I don't "catch" any of those "deadly germs" from all those "dead animals"!

spraynpray said;
@Gitzo: LOL! I think that a lot of the members of this forum fit into the category of antiques too.

Hey, I'm already an "antique"! I think in a few more year I'll be classed as a "genuine fossil".
And I'll tell you one thing about PAD; I've been in a lot of "art" museums, and I see better art on PAD every day than I've seen in a lot of museums. That picture paulr (hope I spelled that right) took of that beautiful purple iris made me sit and look at it for half an hour; I've been trying to take pictures of flowers for about 60 years now, and so far, I've never made one that looked half that good! Flower blossoms "look" easy, because they're so pretty, but as far as i'm concerned, they're one of the most difficult things there is to take great pictures of; and that picture is GREAT !

rmp

Gitzo got it right: pictures of flowers are easy to take and even eaiser to ignore. Once in a great while one does rise up to become interesting.

Mary Swanson, made a good point in her recent article in Shutterbug on fine art, she said show it on PAPER. I agree. It is much easier to see samples on the web. But what looks good on the web and what looks good on the wall may be different all together.

Andrewz

Wow..how did I miss this thread?

Love the question “what is fine art photography?”, I’ll just say what is art? I’ll also say I think everyone here has got it wrong but I have a fine arts education (Just in case you can’t tell that’s just a little tongue in cheek)

Since everyone has such different taste , preferences and bias it’s really impossible to use quality or subject or media when defining art.

Smarter people than me thought this up….

3 point definition of art.

For something to be art you must have all three.

1. An Artist (the photographer, painter who ever must say “I’m an Artist”
2. A Manifesto (or a theory or some kind of unifying theme for the art)
3. A body of work (one good photo isn’t art)


MsMoto:

​Meet Anthony Scavullo in the med 80’s, he told us a great story about working as an assistant for Horst B. Horst… Also Avedon is one my favorites as well. There’s a bar in South Minneapolis (the Black Forest Inn) that is walking distance from the Art Institute that has a huge print of the Daughter of the American Revolution. The Story goes when doing a show at the Art institute, Avedon would go there regularly for a drink. There wasn’t room in the show for the print and it was arrange that a rich benefactor purchased it for donation to be hung in the Bar. It also has a couple of bullet holes in it but that’s another story…