Part 1 Beauty and the Sublime: Exercise 1.4: What is a Photographer

Exercise 1.4: What is a Photographer

In this exercise I am asked to read Marius De Zayas' (1880- 1961) essay "Photography and Photography and Artistic Photography" and to:

• summarise his key points
• note my response to his points of view
• consider if his points are still relevant today

The article can be found here:
http://www.camramirez.com/pdf/DI_Week6_PhotoAndArt.pdf


I'll list the key points I feel De Zayas makes and my response to each one.

• De Zayas suggests photography is split between i) the observational and ii) the desire to create an emotional response. I would agree with both but I feel both can can blur to varying degrees. Reportage photography can cover both to varying degree e.g. images of crisis, Don McCullin specialised in war photography and the "under side" of society, wedding photographers such as Jason Groupp.

• De Zayas claims photography is not art because art is the expression of a concept, an idea and photography is simply the capture of fact. I think both are true and both are not true. Is it a still life or portrait captured painting or drawing simply a capture of how the artist sees and draws as interpreted by the painter drawer. A photograph can be the same yet life and its surroundings are not static through the eyes of humans.or any life form with the ability to see. Memories can be captured and invoke an emotional response, static subjects can be presented to create an emotion, motion can be captured or implied in a photograph

• De Zayas  appears to say that art and its expression of form aligns to periods of time when the method for expressing for form was current for a particular time period. When inspiration is lacking looking back at art genres can be inspiring. Whilst the history of art is important to understand its beginnings, its evolutions and its challenges photography can expressed to match art evolution but I think even now its evolving and faces valid challenges e.g. photoshopped images, images captured and used to create art like drawings, colours etc even now is much debated. I met a photographer artist, now the course text suggests it may not be good to align to this, who made a living from this practice and was selling images and having exhibitions of this style of art. Photo grunge is also a fairly new style getting mixed responses but is pushing both the boundary of art, it is also the expression of a concept. Sebastian Michaels is an active practitioner in this field

• De Zayas discusses exposure or non-exposure to art can influence the artist. I feel there is a level of contradiction as his statement about one group of people being less influenced have more freedom to express and are not trapped by convention or style. Yet in current times there are even more facilities allowing artists to take inspiration from the past, there is also a much greater freedom of independence, self expression and social media outlets to express it. Anyone looking at the photograph section of Deviant Art will not fail to be inspired by the varieties of expression and individually developed concepts, perhaps created in oblivion to the history of art and photography

• I read with interest De Zayas comments about the true photographer being someone who can possess a clear view of things to be able to understand and feel the beauty of the reality of form. Yet I think are the pre-requisites to be a "true" photographer simply are something created by in an attempt to distinguish, to create an elitism. Did not the works of many artists revered today be ignored when originally produced

• Photography is not art but it can be made to be art claims De Zayas. He also seems obsessed that art is all about form yet I would challenge him to say that Form is just one aspect of art. the photograph like paintings and drawings are productions in 2 dimensions and different to say sculpture or any creations in 3 dimensions yet 2d creations have been regarded as art going back to 2D images created by our ancestors in caveman times. He feels photography it a capture of the truth and not the imagination yet, for his time period regards Stieglitz as an experimentalist which surely requires some stretch and capture of imagination?

• De Zayas finishes by looking to determine which of the following is more important in Photography....the fusion of ideas with natural form, or the way in which the photography matches natural form with expression of his mind

In reflection I think De Zayas questions what creativity and expression of concept is available to the photographer and I suspect that any method of expression of concept would face the same challenges. I wonder if there is an element of misunderstanding of how photography can used to create an emotion. This is probably also due to a misunderstanding of photography at the time or writing the essay, circa 1913

In fairness Photography does not have the history that say drawing does. Elements of it are through technology but all art uses it, a camera is simply just a tool of the artist.

So back to the original question "What is a photographer".  We hear term that Dr's have a practice, yet that could be quite alarming if you are a patient but the reality is perhaps quite close to the truth, after all are skills not developed if they are not practiced.

This is probably why photographers also have a practice and this by design is how any artists develops since the vast majority are not born with the skills they have at their peak. So for me the definition of a photographer is a practitioner, someone who practices their photography with the aim of improving, the aim of creating, the desire for self expression through the medium of photography. 

To be regarded as an artist is perhaps when one has practiced sufficiently to be able to express oneself and so as photography practitioners we continue to practice until sufficiently skilled to be recognised as an artist.