Photography

During the last days Art & Aesthetics class, we discussed the topic of photography as an art and took at look at its history. We learned about camera obscura, digital photography, and touched on several well known photographic artists. However, the question given out was, "do you think photography is an art? Everyone takes photographs, so are we all artists?"
First off, photography is both an art and a science. Referring to the mechanics of it, its about the way images were made on a photosensitive surface by light that passes through a lens, the chemical changes that occurred in the film so that images were recorded, etc. The artistic aspect is more the photographer's choices; which films, which lens, how to manipulate the lighting, etc. As for the idea of photography as an art, early photographers felt that for photography to be an art it had to look like art. To achieve this, they employed darkroom techniques, tricks and manipulation that created photos that looked staged and imitative of sentimental, moralistic paintings. Photographers eventually began to think that photographic art should be more direct, non manipulated and sharply focused. Throughout history, the perspectives on photography have drastically changed bringing forth several photographic art forms such as photograms, photojournalism, documentary photography, studio photography, etc.
<http://writinghistory.blogspot.ca/2007/12/32-cameras.html>
My personal opinion would be that photography is an art depending on how the photographer wants to use the camera and the photo. I don't believe that a picture taken of something to show off whats in the picture can necessarily be called art. I think that in order to call it art, the photographer has to make decisions in the process of taking the picture rather than just clicking a button. However, without knowing if the picture was planned, it is up to the viewer to decide whether or not it is art. In my opinion, all forms of photography can produce art and theres a certain skill level required with a camera in order to create a piece of art. Not everyone can be considered an artist because they simply pressed a button, that would only insult those that actually take their time to produce artwork using this technology. Even after a course on photography, I would not consider myself to be a photographic artist by any means as there is so much I can learn and do better, but that does not mean that I cannot take a nice picture once in a while.
<http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-pictures-that-shaped-america.php/migrant-mother-famous-photographs-dorothea-lange>