Why take a photo over drawing or painting?

yep! it is easy to point your camera and press lens release... but to take that as the sole reason that photography is an easy art form is to be misinformed at the least. Susan Sontag told us about the democratisation of photography in that every man and his dog is going round shooting off miles of film! Images dominate our culture in such a way that observers become distanced from a picture. We are so accustomed to the alchemy of image making that it takes a special image to talk to us in a way that is more than documentation or memory trigger. The art of photography is not so much about being there, the moment, fast reflex time, light conditions, etc etc (although all these factors are important)but about having an eye to recognise an essential structure that imbues that feeling the maker has in mind as a work of art. To me drawing, painting, printmaking and photography have equal opportunity to be art. The artist makes it happen.

 

Because of the cultural place from which we observe everything the detail of a photograph has become an expectation in a way. I use photography as source material for a high percentage of my art but few of my photographs are artworks in themselves. For me the art of photography is a place where the photograph cannot be taken to a higher plane, where as a photo (print or screen) the image says it all.<div></div>

I recently found some of my photos hanging on the walls of a large resort hotel in the form

of some kind of a painting. I did not know nor did I give permission . They have been

changed enough to probably protect the artist from a lawsuit but I am shocked as to how my

captured moments have been manipulated. The beauty captured has been raped. I guess it

should be flattering that they liked them well enough to do that but I was devastated when I

saw them. Paintings, I think are a rendition of many moments of an individual's creative

imagination. Photography is the instantaneous capture of one wonderful moment seen by no

other. Judi<div></div>

For those of us who can't paint, draw or sculpt, painting with light is our form of artistis expression.

Why take a photo over painting? It is what I do best! I have had the incredible life pleasure of

discovering something I love. It allows me to explore the natural beauty that is all around

me. It teaches me to not only look, but to see. Doing anything else with my life would be a

waste of my precious time in this world.<div></div>

LeRoy Zimmerman: Yours is the one true answer to the question. Thank you.

Thanks for the kind words Felix. If you want to see a better view of my Tassie shot, you can

go to http://www.spacew.com/gallery/image005874.html where I have it posted online.

First of all, I believe most (if not all) of the opinions here are from photographers and not painters. Even though they both give pictures (and visual expression), painting and photography are completely different and they require different skills, different techniques and different equipments.

 

By photography, I assume you mean "making pictures by a film or a digital camera", but I don't think any of us thought about the cameras of the old days that may need an exposure time in minutes and produce colorless pictures.

 

OK, now we do have millions of colors and 10 fps. We should not think of painting as an art with a piece of paper and a pencil or paintbrushes either. Painters of old times also use rulers, erasers,etc. They measured the subject and the pictures. They applied science and, believe it or not, Math too. Now we also use computers and other equipments for painting. To get an idea of how technology is applied to painting, we can start looking at how they make the movie "IceAge", for example.

 

Most of us, digital photographers, also do painting everyday after we load the pictures up to our computers. Now, some of us will start scratching their heads because we are not good enough in painting. One of the hardest thing when we try to fix our "photographs" is about colors, brightness, and contrast.

 

One reason that an artist needs to see the real subject (and definitely not a photoghaph) at the exact lighting is so he can choose the right colors, brightness, and contrast.

 

Have you ever wish your eyes, your nose look better? and your lips are more sexy? If you have, the answer is painting. The models look better in the magazine because of the painters. A lot of guys think that the good doctor in "Final Fantasy" is prettier than any "woman" in the world. Of course that is painting, but is it only from imagination? is it purely "fantasy?"

 

To answer the question "why take a photo over painting?", I say we take photo AND we paint.

 

John

Terence

 

Not long ago i had to traipse through the scene a couple painters were working on in the UNC botanical garden. I smiled and said "my way is quicker" to which he smiled and said something like "my way is more fun and a lot less dirty". Neither of us was "jealous" or "dismissive". More like we both appreciated that we had different ways of enjoying the same thing.

John Tran: If you read carefully above there have been responses from painters. I have been painting for thirty years and have been doing photography for 45 years. Artists, like myself, work from photographs at times, contrary to your statement.

 

Chris Waller: While I agree with your statement that photography is a form in its own right, I would argue with the veracity of your statement that photography is as different from painting as painting is to sculpture. My earlier responses claimed that painting originates entirely from within whereas (most)photography relies on available light waves, that may require manipulation, but are nevertheless still "out there" and therefore demand that one "shop" or "hunt" for an already available main source of the final image. I do not believe that makes it any less "worthy" of painting or music, but, like you state, make it an art form unto itself; though an art form that somehow is removed from the total subjective interpretation that a painting demonstrates, or , for that matter that most jazz (for example) can provide. In addition to visual arts , I have also been a professional jazz musician for many years, and I provided an analogy above for music, certainly jazz, whereby I can hand the identical saxophone to any two musicians and strangely they will get two entirely differing sounds out of the same instrument. Even percussion instruments (pianos and drums) will demonstrate the same result. When applied to a chart of music the result is very personal and deeply subjective. No two musicians providing the same result even with an identical instument. The same camera in the hands of two photographers will produce images that are identical when following a set of parameters that they must follow analogous to the music chart. Photographic post manipulation is just that. It is manipuation of an image that already was "hunted down".

Steve Sharf: I didn't mean to say painters never use photographs. In fact, they do and they use many other things too. What I meant is when you see some painters insist on working with the real subject, they have their reasons and one of the reasons is so they can choose the right colors. That means a photograph is usually not showing exactly what the real colors are and so it is a hard "painting" job to fix the photographs to make their colors closer to the real thing or to what we like.

John

Because from A (Adams) to Z (Zwart)...

Thanks for visiting us : argentic-photo.com

Up near the top of the thread, Don E says: .../

 

"what can photography provide that painting or drawing or printmaking can't do?"

 

The moment. /...

 

??

 

The moment is precisely what Impressionist painting is about. It's just that less than .01% of the population possess such skills. Those that do are neither noticed nor valued by today's "fast-food, image-junkies."

 

The talented artist is fully capable of describing "The moment", either with paint or pen/pencil on paper.

I agree fully with Kevin's comment above. I see this "moment" description often, concerning photography, and it is commonly used in an exclusionary manner concerning other art forms. As if other genres are suffering from an inherent inability to relate a particular instant in time. Kevin has aptly chosen impressionism as an example as it is well understood that the main aim of impressionism was the objective rendition of fleeting impressions.

 

There are other art forms that are very capable of expressing "the moment"

I hope this does not double post.

 

I think the questioner is posing the prime question of philosophy of photography. I think surely the advent of abstract painting was in part an answer to it: what is unique to painting if photography has 'representation' so well handled?

 

As has been said, photography has 'the moment.' What I think it also has that painting does not is that it is, in my view, principally about light and darkness. These are not only formal considerations. Light and darkness, and their relationship to one another, is a theme that recurs throughout history and in all cultures. Not simply, of course, for their plain meaning, but for what they symbolize and their emotional resonance.

 

I know that what I am saying applies chiefly to black and white photography, but I think it is not an accident that B&W is the gold standard in art photography. That is a point I would not consider fruitful to debate.

 

I am a person who experiences art; I do not make it, my partner does. But I think the point of view of such a person has its separate but equal value.

Steve, I don't buy your comparison to jazz musicians. Photography is more than just pressing a button, and many seem to be ignoring this fact for reasons I do not understand.

 

If two musicians play the same sheet of music, using the same instrument, and produce a different sound, that is because they are not using the instrument precisely the same way. They may breathe differently, or have whatever nuances in their techniques that separate them.

 

Like-wise, give a camera to two different photographers and they will not take the same photograph. They will come up with a different composition and they may focus differently. They may meter off of different surfaces to emphasize the tonality of a certain subject, or they may use a metering mode to expose for the entire scene.

 

If shooting film, they may also develop the film differently... different types of agitation cycles can have different affects on the negative. When they go to print/post process, be it in the darkroom or computer, they may make many more choices, all of which comes together to create their own unique vision.

 

Your example gives the impression that all photography is, is setting up a camera on a tripod at a pre-designated location, using precise pre-determined exposure values, pressing a button and dropping off the camera at the nearest Walgreens and picking up your photos an hour later. Some people may choose to do that, but photography can be and is much more than that.

 

If two artists played the same music using the same instrument and exactly the same technique, etc they would produce exactly the same sound. They do not; I imagine it's virtually impossible to do so, and that's what defines one musician from another.

 

 

Another thing to consider is that different arts affect people differently. A painting doesn't capture my heart and imagination the way some photographs do. When a photographer travels to a poor, conflict ridden area of the world and comes back with photographs of the suffering being inflicted, those photos resonate with a gravity that other forms of art do not. I have never seen a painting that moved me. For others, perhaps it's the opposite. It can be likened to the age old adage: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

Photography or painting?

 

http://www.extralot.com/show_image_detail.php?item=27912&partner=2

This painter has done a real lot of Photo-like oil-paintings, overexposed, out of focus, blurred, advertisements, over-painted photographs, anything.

 

http://www.paletaworld.org/dbimages/1939_1.jpg

(Original is much better than this, could not find a better image)

This painter lived before photography became reality, still the shadows look like zone-metered stuff. He's done a lot of 'night shots'.

 

I love paintings as much as photography, still my paint-brush will be the camera for now. I know some painters and all of them have a knack for photography. Surprise?

All the best, Georg

I agree with most of what's been said already, and the quote from Winogrand - "There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described" - is how I feel, too. I'm interested in both photography and drawing and have been doing both for a few years. These are really two different things in my life.

 

Drawing is indeed a way of meditation - something I do to feel alive and connected with what I see. When I draw, I truly see. The result is not as important as the process, as the experience of the practice is what drawing is all about. When the awareness from a session of drawing comes to an end after half an hour or so (which is about the time I manage to concentrate, or "meditate" if you wish), I often make the mistake of correcting or enhancing the drawing. When I do that, it becomes something else. If it is left untouched, it is the record of a higher state of awareness.

 

In my opinion, this is why drawing is always related to your inner being - your intuition, emotions and experience as a human being. It cannot be anything else.

 

Photorealistic drawing or painting is, to me, different from this process of a higher awareness. Photorealistic is about logic, common sense and a kind of objective vision inherited and related to photography (remember camera obscura).

 

Photography is also about awareness, seeing, feeling alive and connected. But from the other side of your skin. Photography describes your being, your soul and body in "the world", whereas drawing describes "the world" in your body and soul.

 

When I take pictures, the photographs are always about me, because I chose the contents. What to include, what to exclude. But it also holds the mystery of whether there IS something outside of _me_.

 

Photography is interesting because I register the world _around_ me, from my and only my perspective, while at the same time posing the question "IS there a world around me?".

 

There are different ways of drawing and different ways of photography - to me each has its own purpose and the two do not compete.

 

Call it quantum physics, religion or philosophy. Same thing to me.

Sometimes, only a photo can make us say, "There but for the grace of God, go I."

 

And that makes us feel relief and gratitude.