Photography as art

Clearly not all photography is generally considered art - you know, 'real art'. What is and what is not is beyond me; but I feel more artistic with my photography now than I did almost 20 years ago when I discovered black and white photography and the relative simplicity of having a home dark room. At that time, I felt my photography was art, but I wasn't sure why. On second consideration, I wasn't convinced it was art, but that it could/should be. I was certainly exposed to bnw photography that I considered art.

Anyway, back to now. After many years without serious shooting, and since arriving in Nebraska, committing to focus on art, having relatively little entertainment (distraction), and being gifted the different landscape, plants, and buildings, photography has become a true artistic endeavor (preoccupation, obsession,...) for me. Buildings, grasses and hills, windows, fences, and the like, have become metaphors and objects of beauty - granted a different beauty than fine china etc.

On top of that, I finally made the leap to digital photography and digital editing of my photographs. I stuck with film a long time because I was committed to producing the image without electronic help, just me, light/shadow, and film. Ha! And autofocus, varying paper hues and printer and inks I couldn't predict or control, etc etc etc. Anyway, I gave in. My husband bought me the most wonderful digital slr, perfectly suited to the way I shoot. I already had Photoshop Elements and basic editing skills. I added a nice photo printer and off we go!

Now, back to photography as art. As I look at photos of my contacts on Flickr and continue to develop my own work, the art becomes more clear. Shadows are poignant. Colors touch me. Buildings come to life with history or opinion or feeling. For me, that is art. Whether it is for the viewer remains to be known; but for me, it is.

Then in the editing process, the colors and shapes become paint. Images appear in the larger composition that must be carved out and dramatized. I've always wanted to be a painter - a 'real artist'. I'm starting to feel like one. Again, to what success for others, remains to be known, but I'm having a new experience with the camera.

Shown above are a photograph as shot and a portion of it tweeked up with Photoshop as the muse directed. Can a photograph become paint to the artist? Is this art? What are your experiences?

The equipment I'm using is:

• Panasonic DMC-FZ50 (Leica optics)
• Epson R2400 Stylus Photo Printer
• Toshiba computer and MS Vista
• Photoshop Elements 6
  
  

ceramic buttons

Here are the stoneware buttons I just made. the last picture shows the mess that fell to the kiln shelf. Some wouldn't fit on the rods of my bead rack and I strung them on two sizes of high temp wire. The smaller wire slumped. I think I can save some with a small dremel bit.

I saved some with minor glaze damage and will use those as collage embelishments.

Misc

The buttons are glazed and in the cool-down stage in the kiln -my new, and newly decorated kiln. Riley painted it with about 8 tubes of acrylic paint a couple of days ago. No harm and it is lovely and bright. Can't wait to see how the buttons turned out.

I have the first edition of my studio website up. It is holycowstudio.com. I plan to link or move my blog there when I figure the software out better. So far I have my ETSY shop displaying and I plan to use ETSY for my sales from the website. I don't think I want to manage an online store and I'm not selling much anyway!

I used godaddy to get my domain name and to host the site. I am using their software to build the site.

Tonite is clay-play at the art gallery. I'm working on a hollow egg - "CAT". We use low fire clay and work together once per week. It's fun to work together and visit. more later - dinner!

Dinner is over. I gathered up my majolica style glaze and colors to take to clay play. In the distraction of after dinner, Eli took a gallon of white glaze and poured it down the sink. He said it was old. Drat! I swear I can't have anything. It depresses me sometimes how destructive they are. They're 4. He knew that was mine and that it was 'paint'. It's not innocent. He's in time out but that hardly seems sufficient. He knew. Boy this is hard sometimes (parenting). Then again, just look at those faces!