Fine-art photography

{

"text": "Fine-art photography is a medium of creative expression driven by the photographer's personal vision.

Unlike representational photography, such as photojournalism, fine art does not aim to provide a documentary account of objective reality. While photojournalism records specific events, fine-art photography seeks to communicate a subjective idea, a message, or an emotion. It also differs from commercial photography, which focuses on advertising products or services. In this field, the photographer acts as an artist using the camera to fulfill a creative intent.\n\nArtists employ various mechanisms to achieve their specific aesthetic goals. Some practitioners focus on the careful staging and lighting of a scene to create a specific look.

This approach moves away from simply discovering a ready-made moment. Other artists use more experimental methods, such as the creation of chemograms.

Developed by Josef H. Neumann in the mid-1970s, chemograms involve both photographic processing and painting directly on photographic paper. This acts as a form of analog post-production, where the image is altered after the enlarging process. Because of this manual intervention, every chemogram is a unique piece. Some artists even blur the lines between disciplines by painting over photographic images with oil paints.\n\nThroughout its history, fine-art photography has moved through several distinct stages and genres. Until the late 1970s, certain subjects predominated, including nudes, portraits, and natural landscapes.

In the 1970s and 1980s, breakthrough artists like Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Cindy Sherman revitalized these genres by viewing them with fresh eyes. Modern trends have introduced full spectrum photography, which uses careful filtering across ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light to create new visions. Additionally, the digital movement has allowed for new forms of manipulation, filtering, and resolution changes.\n\nThe journey toward recognition as a fine art has been a long process involving many key figures. One historian noted that John Edwin Mayall was an early exponent, exhibiting daguerreotypes of the Lord's Prayer in 1851. During the Victorian era, practitioners like Julia Margaret Cameron and Oscar Gustave Rejlander made successful attempts at composition photography. In the United States, Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen were instrumental in establishing photography's status in museums.

In contrast, the United Kingdom did not widely recognize photography as an art form until around 1960. S. D. Jouhar noted that while the USA accepted photography in galleries, the UK often viewed it merely as a craft.\n\nInstitutional support has played a massive role in the significance of the medium. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) provided vital confirmation of photography's status when it established a photography department in 1940. The appointment of Beaumont Newhall as the first curator is often cited as a major milestone. The market for these works is also significant. In 2004, approximately 7,000 photographs were sold in auction rooms. During the decade between 1994 and 2004, these photographs saw an average annual price rise of 7.6 percent. About 80 percent of these auction sales occurred in the United States.\n\nNotable examples of the medium's impact can be seen in the work of Ansel Adams.

While Adams focused on photography as art, his images of Yosemite and Yellowstone helped build political support for conservation. His work demonstrates how fine art can serve as a byproduct for advancing social or environmental causes. Other artists, like those working in the "snapshot aesthetic," have explored different ways of seeing. Even the way photographs are displayed has changed; while prints were once pasted onto plywood without glass, they were often framed behind glass between 1955 and 2000. Since 2000, there has been a move back toward showing contemporary prints on boards without glass.\n\nFine-art photography also connects to and overlaps with many other professional fields. There is a documented blurring of lines between commercial fashion photography and fine art.

This overlap is seen in exhibitions, trade fairs like Art Basel Miami Beach, and specialized books. Similarly, photojournalism began to overlap with fine art in the late 1960s and 1970s. By 1987, images originally taken for newspapers and magazines were regularly appearing in museum frames. Today, the medium continues to evolve through digital tools and even smartphone apps like Snapchat, constantly redefining the boundaries of visual expression.",

"media": [

"File:Alfred Stieglitz - The Steerage - Google Art Project.jpg",

"File:Gursky Shanghai, 2000, C-print mounted to plexiglass, 119 x 81 inches",

"File:Josef H. Neumann- Gustav I (1976).jpg",

"File:Aktikompositsioon 19 (J. Künnap).jpg",

"File:Adams The Tetons and the Snake River (1942)",

"File:Martin Vorel, Birches (2021)"

]

}