Talk:Fine-art photography

Please revisit basic premise
The current article makes the common mistake of not clearly separating "art" from "fine-art." The very first definition made an attempt at it, but it has since been overturned. Please consider making this separation upfront as it renders the entire definition ambiguous. Expression of the photographer's vision makes photographs art, but not necessarily fine art. Fine arts are defined as arts created specifically to have aesthetic appeal (beauty). A photograph can be art without being fine-art. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guytal2 (talk • contribs) 13:18, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

February 2008
I have modified the basic definition which used to state:

''Fine art photography, sometimes simply called art photography, refers to high-quality archival photographic prints of pictures that are created to fulfill the creative vision of an individual professional. Such prints are reproduced, usually in limited editions, in order to be sold to dealers, collectors or curators, rather than mass reproduced in advertising or magazines. Prints will sometimes, but not always, be exhibited in an art gallery.''

I removed the reference to high-quality archival because many art photographs are neither high-quality or archival. In fact some art photography deliberately address these two issues. These two factors do not render them non-art photographs. I have also edited the reference to creative individual to recognize that art photographs can be collaboratively created by more than one person (e.g. Canada's General Idea). And finally, the reference to reproductions is again misleading - and I need only mention those photographic artists working with Polaroids to provide evidence - so I changed the wording from are reproduced to may be reproduced. I'm not sure what the last sentence added to a definition so I removed it. You could as easily say "Prints will sometimes, but not always, be exhibited in an art gallery, an apartment, on a fridge door, etc.

I think this entire wiki of fine art photography is outdated and inaccurate, and agree with the other comments on this page. The first sentence, as stated before, is absurd. Natural photography, without careful staging and lighting of the picture, is as popular as ever. Does anyone have any figures about sales or popularity of fine art photography from 2004 to the present? I don't think making statements about whether black & white photography or color photography is relevant anymore either. Statements about the successes of fine art photographers such as "with strong sales coming only from the traditional "big names" of photography such as Ansel Adams." is absolute hogwash.

Although I am not qualified to write the definitive guide, this one seems grossly inaccurate and ill-informed, and quite frankly is insulting to fine art photographers worldwide.

Why is there no mention at all of Man Ray? He was one of the most innovative photographers of his time. ___________________

The paragraph below seems inaccurate. While fine art photography may not be prominent on the internet because of the obvious mismatch of mediums, fine art photography is alive and well in galleries, museums, printed publications, and educational centers worldwide, and catering to a rapidly growing market of artists, as well as fine-art photography collectors and enthusiasts. Much of the art of photography lies in printing processes' and subtle details; none of which can be expressed on a computer screen, leaving fine art photography lost in the masses of internet photo-sharing and photo-gallery sites. This does not mean that a strong community does not exist, it just may not exist on the internet. _____________________ ''No concerted attempt has been made to popularize fine art photography, beyond the limited market for book reproductions. It is generally considered that one has to have an 'educated eye' to really appreciate fine art photography. Since art photography is simply not on the agenda of schools and educationalists, the chance of developing a popular mass market remains limited. Numerous online "web magazines" have appeared since 1995, offering a new form of outlet for viewing fine art photography, but even this remain a niche and sales figures remain poor. Attempts by online art retailers to sell photography alongside prints of paintings have had mixed results, with strong sales coming only from the traditional "big names" of photography such as Ansel Adams.'' ______________________

Added CC-BY-PA released Hi-Res Fine Art Photo. I think this article provides too many opinions about art and their processes and not enough clarification of the term. The part that says it is a photograph that has no purpose outside appealing to the creator's sense of beauty and a few examples is all that would be needed. I don't see a need for names here at all. Maybe a list of names referenced like list of fine art photographers. That could be opening another can of worms instead of selecting the best worms we see here already and using them. At the end of the 20th century history there is a presumptive statement about color. Color photography is now preferred over black & white, and its validation was strongly aided by curator John Szarkowski.

John may have preferred color and he may have tried to validate his preference. He was not successful in validating color fine art photography into a predominant state! '''If I get no objections by tomorrow PM, I will remove all but the that part not opinion-laden and non-debatable material. In other words, most that there is here now.''' CurtisNeeley (talk) 22:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Too tired to do it right tonight. I will try to try tomorrow.CurtisNeeley (talk) 03:28, 8 February 2008 (UTC) __________________________________________

''I decided against editing it. It would end up up a stub or three sentences or a few more. What exactly is a stub? The edit would look as follows. Why speak of the history or past of a term? I would  just be lost editing it and will leave it alone.'' __________________________________________

''Fine art photography usually refers to photographs that are created only to fulfill the creative vision of the artist. Fine art photography contrasts with photojournalism and commercial photography. Commercial photography intends to assist with selling a product or service and photojournalism is done with an editorial purpose in mind.''

''The photograph you see here to the right is a CC-BY-SA-3.0 released file that was created by combining six exposures from an Olympus C2020Z. Combining six overlapping exposures from the sensor and applying adjustments in Photoshop gave enough detail for an 18" X 24" at 200 dpi. It is a 4.96 Megabyte file. It was shown in a public gallery and one was sold as a "fine art photograph". This was done at the UofA Multicultural Center in 2006. Here you can download it and print it for free. That still leaves a lot of work to do. It was not done to sell anything like fence rails or even to be editorially useful here. It was done only to be true to the artist's vision of beauty. Can you tell it came from an old digital camera or other? Why would anyone care? See the first sentence of this article. '' CurtisNeeley (talk) 01:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Just as a note, the photograph added is by CurtisNeeley himself, and while contributing something to the article, some of the text added is not NPOV and extraneous, especially the direction to download and print it. 72.188.185.243 (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Better now?
Almost fixed it. It is now concise. My name is not in it anywhere. Is that neutral enough? Unless they click on the photo they will never see my name. I am famous enough and Wiki is just a hobby of mine now. Telling that the free photo is not just a web quality is valid I think. CurtisNeeley (talk) 01:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes the caption is better, but the text describing the photo doesn't really relate to the article. If you'd like to include this type of information, why not attach it to the photo's description?  TheMindsEye (talk) 04:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Bassclarinet AKA Jon Goto prefers it jumbled?
Bassclarinet AKA John Goto should put some reasoning in the discussion page here. He apparently does what many feel is art. I say he appears completely clueless about fine art photography. He preferred the jumbled up mess of the larger article he reverted to. Looking at his computer created jumbled up photos, I can see why. See one jumble of his snapshots.

Think that doesn't illustrate how far he is from understanding fine art photography? This, ] and this will with the tiniest amount of debate. I contend you can't visit John Goto's site and find a single fine art photograph on his site. An obvious combination of several photographs is just a jumble of photos. It is not a painting, but it requires MUCH more creator manipulation than a fine art photograph will ever need. I am sorry to need to be so hard on him, but apparently someone should have long ago. John Goto should be hasty deleted. It lists as sources links to his own website only. He is 'internationally' known for photo-digital art not photography. CurtisNeeley (talk) 23:47, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Having had a look at Mr. Neeley’s Wiki entry, I prefer not to be included in this page. John Goto —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bassclarinet (talk • contribs) 14:38, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Having had a look at this and Mr. Goto's involvement in attempting to call photo montages fine art photography, John Goto appears to have particular NPOV trouble and does not belong here editing/reverting. Glad he realized how badly out of place he was when speaking about fine art photography or editing/reverting this article.  Wikipedia is not a forum for original material and calling a photo montage fine art photography is both original research and particularly out of place here. CurtisNeeley (talk) 16:51, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Internal contradiction

 * These images were done while he was trying to raise public awareness of these two locations and to have them protected. They were not created in order to raise awareness of anything. They were done simply to be true to the vision of the artist.

These sentences are contradictory.

Gordon Nelson96.231.58.46 (talk) 15:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


 * They certainly are! Looks like an oxymoron.  The images were not made so that Yosemite could be protected or preserved, but were still used to help in the effort.  I think it should be adjusted so that it reflects a potential use of fine art for a purpose, while not being done specifically for that purpose originally.


 * Many of Ansel's images were done while he was trying to raise public awareness of these locations and to have them protected. He was a lifelong promoter of conservation. His fine art photographs were done simply to be true to his vision.

Ansel Adams was trying to protect Yosemite when he exposed his Half Dome. Why do mountain climbers climb? Ansel was also breathing. He did not do his fine art photography to promote breathing. Ha - - humor.. CurtisNeeley (talk) 17:52, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

'''

CC-BY-SA-3
Image replaced. ''' I do not think it is a vanity issue or NPOV issue as it is now. I will just keep putting it back until someone explains how it is vanity in a way acceptable to me. CurtisNeeley (talk) 03:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I wasn't happy with the images and replaced them both. One image was not freely licenced, and the other's author was not mentioned in the article. The new images are from artists mentioned in the article, I think that is important.--Commander Keane (talk) 01:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:'Back with Arms Above', black and white photograph by John Coplans, 1984.jpg
The image File:'Back with Arms Above', black and white photograph by John Coplans, 1984.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --23:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Visual imagery
This article is the target of current redirect Visual imagery, even though that phrase does not appear anywhere in the article. Furthermore, "visual imagery" is hardly limited to fine-art photography. (Drawings and paintings were used for visual imagery long before Louis Daguerre had a great idea.) I would argue that this redirect should be either redirected itself, or converted to a more general article. Opinions? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:37, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The "List of definitions" section is redundant
Articles don't need long lists of various definitions. An article should just have a single derived definition in the lead. This section is just confusing and redundant Bhny (talk) 20:36, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Confused definitions
Photography is not a photograph and vice versa.

Further, I will quote myself:

Photography is not necessarily artful in any way. It is merely a way to record data. Selectively, certainly, but not typically to make any artistic attempts.

Photography is the method. "Artistic photography", or "fine-art photography", is on the other hand more specifically a practice in which the method is applied.

83.190.90.240 (talk) 20:24, 27 November 2023 (UTC)