art or not

There has always been an argument as to whether photography is actually art.

I mean, pointing a device at a scene or subject and pressing a button?  That can’t be art, right?

And I’d agree.

But it’s not that simple of course.  There’s so much more than just snapping away.  Deciding when to actually capture a moment for a start requires a degree of skill.  But is that art or just having an eye for that moment?

My preferred genre is landscape, and I can choose to photograph a scene accurately, so the image is pretty well what I see before me.  Or I can interpret that scene and use tools such as lenses and filters, and techniques like a long exposure to convey mood or drama in that same scene.

And that for me is art.

Take the following images as an example.  Both were shot within minutes of each other from inside a small cave entrance looking out onto Caswell Bay near Swansea.

Here I set the camera on its tripod and shot what was in front of me.  It accurately conveys the beach at that precise moment but that’s all it does.  There is no emotion or drama in the image.  It’s just a photograph of a nice view.

Now, for this second image I did a few things:

- I shot in portrait orientation to frame the whole scene with the cave sides and roof
- I used a 6-stop filter giving me a 30 second exposure to convey movement in the clouds and render ghostly images on the beach
- I "painted" the cave walls with light from a torch while the shutter was open
- I used my reverse graduated filter to capture detail in the sky as well as give it a slight magenta colour cast.

And that, as I said above ladies and gentlemen, is art.

For me, anyway!