What is Fine Art Photography?

What is Fine Art Photography?

First, we’ll establish what other types of mainstream photography there are in order to make comparisons.

A Google search reveals that there are many conflicting views. This is not surprising because any attempt to categorise a subject is dependent upon the intent of the underlying system of classification. The general consensus appears to favour classifying photography according to subject matter but, in my opinion, while the subject is undoubtedly the primary motif in the resulting image, it is of least importance when it comes to making sense of what photography is all about. In fact, my preferred approach to defining the different branches of photography is to adopt a hierarchical model, which has the advantage of allowing subject categories to appear in more than one subtree. Take portraiture, for example. There is clearly a world of difference between the family portrait, the portrait of a model in support of a brand, the selfie on social media, the soldier in the theatre of war, or the beautifully lit portrait of a life, written in the lines of a face, and processed in black & white. They are all portraits but they are not all the same discipline.

So, where does this leave us?

For the purpose of this article, I am only concerned with what we might call mainstream photography – still images captured using readily available cameras such as smartphones, compact cameras, SLRs and larger format cameras. The way I see it, there are three main types of photography that are each inseparably bound to their underlying purpose: commercial photography, documentary photography and fine art photography.

To explain:

Commercial photography is the stuff of mail order catalogues, online stores, catwalks, architects and every vertical market that requires images to advertise and sell its products or services.

Documentary photography covers journalism, weddings, travel, social media and every other situation that relates to capturing images of people, things or events as they happen – i.e. a photographic commentary.

Fine art photography is different for reasons that I will come to later but, before we get to that, I would like to introduce an idea – that all three branches of photography are linked, in some way, but not necessarily in the same way, to both time and reality.

Time and Reality

How do time and reality relate to photography? Surely a photograph by definition is a snapshot of reality taken at a specific moment in time? The camera never lies. Yet we all know that it can and frequently does – sometimes by manipulating the composition, sometimes through our choice of on or off camera accessories, and sometimes in post-processing. What was true in the days of wet film still holds true in this digital age; perhaps, more so. So, let’s look at how time and reality affect commercial and documentary photography.

Of the two categories, commercial photography is the one that is most loosely aligned to reality and time. A picture tells a story that is written by whatever we see in the frame. If we could only see what is not in the frame, then the narrative might be entirely different. The reality is that whatever is being packaged and sold needs to entice us and the professional photographer is adept at making sure that happens. Time, here, is dictated by projects, marketing campaigns, product launches, holiday seasons etc., which can often have protracted timescales that result in a disconnect between when an image is taken and when it is seen.

Documentary photography is the category most strongly aligned to reality and time – that, after all, is the whole point of documenting. It is true that smartphone apps and social media have clouded the issue by allowing significant changes to be applied to images before they are posted, pushing them into the territory of fake news, but the purpose that lay behind taking the image in the first place remains that of recording something real that happened at a specific moment in time.

Despite any caveats included above, commercial and documentary photography are both founded on the principal of showing something akin to true likeness at a given moment in time.

How Time and Reality apply to Fine Art Photography

Fine art photography turns the principal above on its head but first let me introduce some other concepts that are key to understanding what separates this discipline from the previous two.

Fine art photographers have a thirst for capturing images that exhibit the unexpected, the dramatic, and the emotional, in ways that are designed to provoke thought and question interpretation. Their work is philosophical. At one end of the scale, the pursuit of each image is frequently requisite on great patience, as a photographer might have to visit a scene time, and time again, waiting for that perfect moment when all the elements are aligned; that moment when an image is not just what it is but what we imagine it to be. At the other end, there is the photographer who deliberately presses the shutter when everything is misaligned; when the moment is least expected; when the image is something not previously imagined.

As a fine art photographer, I am not interested in showing my audience what a storm in the mountain looks like but how it makes them feel. My close-up nature photography is not about showing the difference, or similarities, between one organism or another, it’s about challenging perceptions. Fine art photography is sensual, emotive, and provocative. It promotes discussion and challenges conventional interpretation.

Which brings us to fine art photography’s relationship with time and reality. In contrast to the other two types of photography, the moment in which an image is captured is not controlled by a time or a date in the diary but by the photographer – when, and only when, the moment is right. The reality that is captured is not simply a rendition of the subject itself but of the atmosphere and drama that is in play around the subject. The secret is in turning these seemingly nebulous elements into something emotionally and photographically tangible.

Of course there is crossover

Just because an image was born out of a commercial or documentary shoot doesn’t mean it can’t also be fine art. Many a wall is adorned with photographic art that started life as photojournalism or commercial architecture, for example. In fact, under the right circumstances, images from any of the types can fit comfortably into any of the other categories.

Parting shot

As Hegel might have said, photography that is not art is simply a means to an end. The photograph exists to sell, to document, to represent, to remember, to flatter – the list goes on …

But, when photography becomes art, it is an end in itself.

Nigel Fawcett

One of the many benefits of being retired is that I get to spend so much more time in the great outdoors, not only as a photographer but in exercising one of my other great passions — hill walking. This is a particularly good fit when one’s photography centres around nature and the landscape. There can be few better places to do that than here in the beautiful mountains of Tuscany.