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What Makes a Photograph Fine Art?
by Tom ·
What does it take to make a great photo? Since I’ m a physicist by education, I tend to think of photography as a scientific process. The light comes through the lens, gets focused on the film or sensor, and presto – you have an image. So for years my efforts to improve my pictures were centered around saving up for better lenses, choosing the best film for the shot, and keeping the camera still during the exposure.
Well, precision and quality may make a good image that accurately represents the scene in front of the camera, but I have come to realize that there is a big difference between being a scientist who takes data and being an artist who creates an engaging composition that someone would want to hang on the wall. The suspicion that making great photos takes more than great technical prowess was building in me for a long time, but the concept hit home when I submitted some of my photos for exhibit in our county fair. To my great disappointment, all but one of my pictures was rejected. When I picked up the rejects, the judge told me that the photos were technically perfect, but they lacked passion. I asked her what she meant by 
passion, but she couldn’t really tell me. We talked about how adding a person to one of the pictures might help (I had gone to great lengths to make sure there were NO people in the shot), but I left without understanding how to put passion into my photographs or even what passion means in a photographic context.
Since then, I have been trying to figure out how to capture that elusive passion. I wish I could just look down a table comparing digital SLRs and find a row for passion. So far no luck on that front. But, then, if creating great photographic works of art was easy, everybody would be doing it. Maybe the way to learn the techniques I need is to talk to people who ARE doing it. Maybe a good approach is to learn from people who buy photos and try to understand what makes them want one picture and not another. Or maybe the best way is to make prints of all of my thousands of images, set up a booth at the local street fair, and see what’s popular. Well, maybe not.
How do you understand that ill-defined quality that must be added to a technically perfect photograph to turn it into a work of art? What are all the factors that work together to make a great print that is begging to be displayed over the sofa?
As I sharpen my focus toward wall-worthy photographs, it helps me to write about my thoughts and insights. So that’s the reason for this blog. I expect that my photography will improve just as a result of thinking through ideas and putting them down on virtual paper. I also expect that the things I write will be merely the start of discussions that will help me and all the readers who contribute.
What articles will you see on this BLOG? All kinds of things. Discussions of equipment for sure. And, of course discussions about all the aspects of making a photograph from the time the idea for a picture first comes to mind through the time the matted and framed print goes on the nail in the wall by the front door. I hope to throw in a few interviews as well. The pervasive theme will be the things that separate snapshots from fine art.
Thanks for visiting. I encourage you to register and join the conversation. I promise I won’t sell your email address or use it for any purpose outside this blog. So sign up, jump in, and check back weekly for new posts.
