Introduction
In the last one hundred years photography has become an important way for society to record history. In the last five years we have seen a significant shift in what it means to take a photograph. People everywhere are taking more photographs, to document a moment, to tell a story or to create. Anyone with a cell phone can take a photograph, then hop onto Flickr, Tumblr or Instagram and post that image. Photography can influence how we visualize and see the real world.Along with documenting a special moment or telling a story , photography has played a significant role in the art world. Since the late 1800’s photographers have been experimenting with the artistic aspects that photography has to offer. Photographers such as Henry Peach Robinson, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Oscar G. Rejlander were some of the early explorers of photography as an art form. They experimented with numerous methods such as combining multiple images, overlapping negative plates and playing with different lighting techniques. Many criticized their images, their methods were new and sometimes hard for people to except. Photography as an art form continued to receive criticism. Many disputed its aesthetic claims as an art form. Others felt that making photography an art form was taking away from its social meaning.
By the early 1900’s photography began to gain recognition as an art form. Many in the art world began to embrace photography as a form of artistic expression, but still did not grant it the recognition it deserved. There were still those affiliated with the arts that questioned photography being viewed as a form of art. In this article I will take a brief look at the opposition, those who feel photography falls into a different category of art. I will examine and define the on going question “what is art?” I will then discuss how photography fits into that definition by looking at three photographers, Walker Evans, Cindy Sherman, and the Starn brothers, and how their works deserve the same recognition as Picasso, Monet and Michelangelo. In conclusion I will examine my own attempt to create art through the medium of photography.
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