Do you consider photography "art"?

[filemanager]

Sometimes... well, a lot... I like to blur the line between "photography" and "art". I like photos that are weird and unconventional. Which got me wondering what you all thought.. Do you consider photography to be "art"?

Discuss!

[jdepould]

Snapshots aren't usually art, but there's plenty of photography out there that is art.

[Matthias099]

I found this definition of art:

"Generally art is a (product of) human activity, made with the intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind; by transmitting emotions and/or ideas. . . . Art is also able to illustrate abstract thought and its expressions can elicit previously hidden emotions in its audience."

Therefore Photography is art.

[michellepotter]

Sometimes; it depends. Snapshots probably aren't, but other photos certainly can be. Just like drawings can be art, but when I sketch out a map to my house, it almost certainly isn't.

[crazzy88ss]

Originally Posted by jdepould

Snapshots aren't usually art, but there's plenty of photography out there that is art.

I didn't even think of snapshots when I read this question. I don't even consider snapshots photography.

Photography is an art. Snapshots and taking pictures w/ your camera phone aren't photography to me.

[Major_Small]

but they are:

pho·tog·ra·phy
–noun
1. the process or art of producing images of objects on sensitized surfaces by the chemical action of light or of other forms of radiant energy, as x-rays, gamma rays, or cosmic rays.

I'm with Jdepould. Some photographic work is art, some is not. It's just like painting. The red paint on a barn isn't art, but in an artists hands, the same materials and tools can be made to mean something significant.

[Sime]

one mans car crash is another mans art... so yes, I do.

[windrider86]

I do, I do. I have this conversation quite often with people in a certain gallery I belong to. I'm the only photograper that displays int he gallery and some people are int he mind set that unless you paint or draw then it isnt art.
So i challeneged them to go out and take any sort of photo they wanted and bring them and see if they were worthy of hanging. Not one of them did
However, do I have to agree that not all photographs are art. I take plenty of families and what not that i would never consider hanging on even my own wall.

[Mr Guy]

One thing that jumped out at me studying art history in college that seems to have faded away is that in the last hundred years or so we've changed the definition of art. New definitions are all about expression of the artist, while old definitions were about the appreciation of the audience, and appreciation meant "pay check". To me, a much older and better definition of art is whether someone likes your creativity enough to support it.

By that measure, even if it's just your spouse indulging your new lens for something to put on your wall, to them, it's art.

[Laurence]

It is art to me.