What is Considered Fine Art Photography?
Fine art photography, in short, is photography that is used as a tool for artistic expression. This can be in many ways through trying to capture a narrative, taking photographs with an aesthetic in mind, or experimenting with techniques and equipment for arts sake. With such a broad definition, it can feel hard to pin down what is considered fine art photography, but through looking at some of the most famous fine art photographers, we can begin to understand the expanse of the term. What denotes fine art photography is a somewhat subjective but open ended interpretation. A fine art photograph is defined solely on its context and the intent of the photographer. The validity of a fine art photograph and what is considered fine art photography can be defined through the framework of a simple question: What makes art, art? Art itself is the culmination of expression, ideas, thoughts, and beliefs. While there is no set definition, it is typically a blend between artist intention and the perception of the public.
What makes a Photo a Fine Art Photo?
While the early roots of the medium were defined with the need to capture and document, many photographers sought to use their practice as a form of self-expression. They drifted from the representational aspect of photography that was en vogue at the time and shifted their attention to photography as a tool akin to a painter’s brush. It is not always universal what makes a photo a fine art photo. Many of our artists approach this in different ways. Some photographers construct narratives within a photo or even a series, some are documentary and capture otherwise unseen moments and histories, and some innovate the technical process itself to produce work that furthers the field of visual art and fine art photography.
Who Are Some Photography Artists?
To take you through these different approaches to fine art photography, we have compiled a small survey of some photography artists who embody the different approaches and types of fine art photography.
Susan Meiselas - Documentary Photography
Best known for her series Carnival Strippers, documentary photographer Susan Meiselas approaches fine art photography from a photojournalistic standpoint. “From 1972 to 1975, I spent my summers photographing and interviewing women who performed striptease for small town carnivals in New England, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. As I followed the girl shows from town to town, I photographed the dancers' public performances as well as their private lives. I also taped interviews with the dancers, their boyfriends, the show managers, and paying customers”, Susan Meiselas on Carnival Strippers. Meiselas demonstrates that simply showcasing the world as it is can be fine art. Real people, places, and experiences can still display a level of expression.
Jo Ann Callis - Conceptual and Surrealist
Photographer Jo Ann Callis creates images that are laced with curious imagery and fused with nuanced but vibrant color palettes. Her subjects are typically within domestic spaces, yet there is an offbeat nature to their poses and placement. Her compositions vary: a woman in a bathtub filled with an opaque white liquid, a pale hand resting in a pool of bright yellow honey, a desk lap whose wooden base and neck are reminiscent of a feminine figure while a woman twirls in the background. Callis’ surreal photographs would go on to inspire the visuals of director Sofia Coppola, with Coppola stating that “I also love this photo, Woman with Blue Bow, by Jo Ann Callis, from 1977. I saw it in the newspaper and ordered her book Woman Twirling. It reminded me of the feeling of femininity and frustration I wanted to achieve in The Beguiled” in an article for W Magazine.
Elger Esser - Pictorial Landscape
Elger Esser utilizes an analogue copper plate method to create scenic and picturesque landscapes of Europe. They are still and meditative, and imbued with a painterly and ethereal quality that only the copper plate could produce. The images feel as if they had been painted a century ago, yet they have been made only within the past 20 years. His images showcase a style similar to landscape painters of the Classical era in Europe.
Famous Photographers
One of if not the most famous American photographers is Dorothea Lange. Dorothea Lange is widely known for her Migrant Mother and White Angel Breadline images, taken during her time taking photographs (maybe replace taking photographs with “photographing”?) for the United States’ Farm Security Administration. While documentary photographs at the time, they have aged to become more than just that. They are a snapshot of an era, each image is charged with the melancholic air of the Great Depression. They speak beyond simple documentation and have inspired many others to not just document, but to create and express. Her most famous photograph, Migrant Mother, makes her, in the eyes of most, one of the top ten photographers in the world. The photograph depicts a woman in the center of the frame, her gaze beyond the camera, and her two children, one on each side of her, resting their heads on her shoulders and facing away from the lens. It is undoubtedly one of the most important portrait photographs of photography’s Modern era and paved the way for portrait photography to come. For many, Migrant Mother was not just a portrait of a person, but of place and time.
What is Fine Art Portrait Photography?
Fine art portrait photography is simply photography that aims to capture the personality of a subject and while migrant mother is an excellent early example of such fine art photography, there are many famous modern photographers whose work could also be classified as fine art portrait photography. Some fine art photography examples which could be classified as portrait photography include:
William Eggleston
William Eggleston was raised on his family’s plantation in Sumner, Mississippi. After discovering photography in the early 1960s, he abandoned a traditional education and learned about the medium from illustrated books by Walker Evans, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank. Although he began his career making black and white photographs, he soon transitioned to color technology at a time when color photography was largely confined to commercial advertising. In 1976 with the support of influential historian, critic and curator, John Szarkowski, Eggleston’s work became the subject of the groundbreaking exhibition “Color Photographs” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The companion catalogue “William Eggleston’s Guide” became a quintessential publication within the history of color photography and helped establish the artist as a pioneer of the medium. Through time, his snapshots and portraits of everyday life became a record of his time and era.
Graciela Iturbide
Photographer Graciela Iturbide is another artist whose works have had great inspiration to many. Works such as “Mujer Ángel”, “Nuestra Señora de Las Iguenas”, and “Magnolia” along with her series “Juchitan de Las Mujeres” have showcased the ability of representational photographs to teeter between documentary and aesthetics. A highlight of her work are her portraits and self portraits. Her ability to express her own feelings about the subjects she photographs are what ground her work. They are personal yet informative, inviting the viewer to see through her own eyes.
Manuel Àlvarez Bravo
Manuel Àlvarez Bravo is generally recognized as the most significant artist in Mexico working in the late 20th century and as one of the great modern masters of the photographic medium. His lyric temperament has elevated many of his images into icons that capture the unexpected combinations of everyday existence in urban and rural Mexico. His lifelong work has lent aesthetic insight into Mexico’s actual and imaginative headwaters of history, landscape, and contemporary reality. His portraits are also an encapsulation of a time and place.
Of course, this selection of artists are just a few amongst many fine art photographers who capture and create fine art portrait photography. Along with them, there is a new vanguard of photographers who are shaping their own narrative.
What is Contemporary Fine Art Photography?
Contemporary fine art photography is, in the simplest terms, is fine art photography being produced in the present time, for creative expression in this visual art form. Many contemporary fine art photographers delve into diverse themes like identity, politics, culture, and the environment. Contemporary photography has proven to be an even more open ended practice. Contemporary fine art photographers span multiple photographic processes and aesthetics.
Examples:
Tania Franco Klein
The work of Tania Franco Klein is highly influenced by her fascination with social behavior and contemporary practices such as leisure, consumption, media overstimulation, emotional disconnection, the obsession with eternal youth, the American dream in the Western world and the psychological sequels they generate in our everyday life. While an artist, she is also the main subject in a lot of her photographs. In a way, her works are self-portraits that attempt to showcase how she and ourselves navigate the world.
John Chiara
John Chiara’s compositions are vibrant and energetic. While a physical snapshot of a place, they have an abstracted quality that let the colors and tonality do most of the talking. Chiara’s process involves a normal photo darkroom technique, in which an image is exposed, developed, and then fixed through liquid chemicals. His images lean towards the energy of the Abstract Expressionists through a contemporary lens.
Kennedi Carter
A Durham, North Carolina native by way of Dallas Texas, Kennedi Carter is a photographer with a primary focus on Black subjects. Her work highlights the aesthetics & sociopolitical aspects of Black life as well as the overlooked beauties of the Black experience: skin, texture, trauma, peace, love and community. Her work aims to reinvent notions of creativity and confidence in the realm of Blackness. She documents those around her and weaves a personal and intimate visual narrative of their experiences.
The Photography Market: Is there a Market for Fine Art Photography?
Many view fine art photography strictly through the lens of enjoying art, however people often ask: is there a market for fine art photography? The answer is absolutely. First off, there is very much intrinsic value when it comes to art. You may be drawn to a particular style, aesthetic, design, composition, or even artist. A photograph can bring out emotions beyond a simple investment. Many collectors who begin their journey have done so in the pursuit of supporting the arts as well as for a passion for the art itself.
Beyond just a personal inherent value attached to photographs, there is a thriving commercial market. The works of photographers such as Dorothea Lange and William Eggleston, to name a few, are coveted in the art market and their photographs have proven to hold their value, with their original photographs and early prints selling for upwards of six figures. Alongside the market for modern art, there is a flourishing contemporary art market, which in turn helps the careers of many young and burgeoning artists.
Who Buys Fine Art Photography?
When you think about who buys fine art photography, it can seem out of reach if you are not an established collector, but this is very far from the truth! As a fine art photography gallery we help a wide range of people start and build their collections - we have placed works in major institutions such as The J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, amongst others, and with very established collectors such as Michael G. Wilson. With this, we also sell work every day to people with very small collections or no collection at all, who simply love photography.
Conclusion
ROSEGALLERY is here to help you discover new photographers, learn more about the realm of fine art photography, and to even start your collection. Please feel free to visit the 'Artists' section on our website or come by our gallery to learn more about the photographers that we have in store.