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Roger scruton photography
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In Roger Scruton's essay, "Why Photography Is Not Art", an effort is made to question photography as a genuine art form. Roger spends much of his essay arguing that photography is merely a weak imitation of an object, rather than a carefully crafted depiction of a subject with its own aesthetic properties. Due to the rapid rise of photography all around the globe, his viewpoints are highly controversial. It is important for us to study both sides of the argument, because photography is so important in capturing world history. Photography is a rather new concept, yet its importance is paramount in seeing how others live. Photos allow us to see and capture a specific moment in time, just like a wide array of already accepted art forms. I find it truly interesting that Roger challenges photography as art. I am certainly not a photographer, but I never knew some people challenged photography's artistic merit. I will argue today that Roger Scruton is wrong in his belief that photography has merely a "casual and not intentional" relationship with its subject (Scruton, 89). In essence, photographs lack true depiction. I will also argue that the majority of photographs due indeed, have their own aesthetic properties. This is something Roger Scruton fails to recognize.
Towards the beginning of his essay, Roger Scruton speaks on the topic of intention. Roger feels that photographs are merely, "records of how an actual object looked..." (Scruton, 90). The subject and the picture itself embrace only a causal relationship. This leads Roger to conclude that the only aesthetic properties a photo has is through the subject itself, not the photo. Roger states, "Here the interest in the picture is derivative: it lies in the fact that the pict...
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...e photo is taken. He explains, "...the decesions both to use members of a collection of images as part of a photographic exibition and how to use them can be and often are made well after the photographs have been taken" (Alward, 14). The thought process doesn't end after the camera snaps the photo. In fact, it extends well beyond the initial shot.
Works Cited
Goldblatt, David, and Lee Brown. Aesthetics: A Reader in Philosophy of the Arts . 2nd Ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2005. 76-94. Print.
Scruton, Roger. Why Photography Is Not Art. 1981. 89-94. Print.
Walton, Kendall. Transparent Pictures. 1984. 76-83. Print.
Alward, Peter. (2012). Transparent Representation: Photography and the Art of Casting. Journal Of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, 70(1), 9-18. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6245.2011.01494.x
Having such an image before our eyes, often we fail to recognize the message it is trying to display from a certain point of view. Through Clark’s statement, it is evident that a photograph holds a graphic message, which mirrors the representation of our way of thinking with the world sights, which therefore engages other
Susan Sontag once wrote, “To collect photographs is to collect the world.” In her article entitled “On Photography,” she overviews the nature of photography and its relation to people using it. Sontag discusses photography’s ability to realistically capture the past rather than an interpretation of it, acting as mementos that become immortal. Continuing on to argue the authenticity of photography and how its view points have shifted from art into a social rite.With the use of rhetorical devices, Sontag scrutinizes the characteristics of photography and its effects on surrounding affairs; throughout this article Sontag reiterates the social rites, immortality and authenticity of photographs, and the act of photography becoming voyeuristic. With the use of the rhetorical devices pathos, appeal of emotion, ethos, appeal to ethics and credibility, and logos, appeal to logic, Sontag successfully persuades the audience to connect and agree with her views.
The role of photography is questioned; he asks, what about photography makes it a valid medium? We read about the operator (the photographer), spectrum (the subject) and spectator (the viewer), also about the stimulus (what we see in the photograph) and the punctum (the unclassifiable, the thing that makes the photograph important to the viewer). According to Barthes, the photograph is an adventure for the viewer, but it is ultimately death, the recording of something that will be dead after the picture is taken. This idea is the main focus of Barthes’ writing, the photograph “that-has-been”, in Latin “interfuit: what I see has been here, in this place which extends between infinity and the subject; it has been here, and yet immediately separated; it has been absolutely, irrefutably present, and yet already deferred” (Barthes, 76).... ...
that the camera is not more than an eye. It does not think. Any connection with judging, choosing, arranging, including, excluding, and snapping has to be with the photographer.”
Photography is defined at the art or practice of taking and processing photographs. To understand photography is having insight or good judgment to know how to take the picture, but also edit it if need be. Does photography limit our understanding of the world? What some people haven’t realized is that photography is all around us, whether it is in the person’s mind to see it or not. While we see photography throughout our daily routine, people dismiss the small types of photography and focus on the bigger sceneries like other countries beautiful cities and landscapes. It’s true that in this day and age, most photographs we see have been altered in some way. When photographers use Photoshop to edit our photos, we use many different ways to make that image appealing to the eye. Although, photographers unless told to do so will not change an image into something totally absurd that takes away from being astatically pleasing. Images are a gateway to the insight of the rest of the world’s cultures landscapes, and architecture, and photography is the key aspect to it. Photography is a one way to see the world, but it is better if you go and travel around the world to see it. In order to see if photography actually limits our understanding, we have to first look at the positive side of photography.
In The Photographer’s Eyes, John Szarkowski focused on issues that encompass the art of photography. The five issues are: The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, and the Vantage Point. “These issues do not define discrete categories of work; on the contrary they should be regarded as interdependent aspects of a single problem…”
"A photograph is not merely a substitute for a glance. It is a sharpened vision. It is the revelation of new and important facts." ("Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History."). Sid Grossman, a Photo League photographer expressed this sentiment, summarizing the role photography had on America in the 1940’s and 50’s. During this era, photojournalism climaxed, causing photographers to join the bandwagon or react against it. The question of whether photography can be art was settled a long time ago. Most major museums now have photography departments, and the photographs procure pretty hefty prices. The question of whether photojournalism or documentary photography can be art is now the question at hand. Art collectors are constantly looking to be surprised; today they are excited by images first seen in last week’s newspapers as photojournalism revels in the new status as art “du jour” or “reportage art”.
As seen in paintings of battle scenes and portraits of wealthy Renaissance aristocracy, people have always strived to preserve and document their existence. The creation of photography was merely the logical continuum of human nature’s innate desire to preserve the past, as well as a necessary reaction to a world in a stage of dramatic and irreversible change. It is not a coincidence that photography arose in major industrial cities towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Goldblatt, and Brown. Aesthetics: A Reader in Philosophy of the Arts, Upper Saddle Ridge, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997.
Philosophies of Art and Beauty Edited by Hofstadter and Kuhns, (Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1976) chapters one and two for an overview of the aesthetics of Plato and Aristotle.
There are few questions quite as esoteric or as futilely subjective as the philosopher's "What is…?" Yet posing and answering this question in reference to the identity of art is critical to further discussions of our subject matter in this course. There is no way for us to discuss art until we have a working definition of what art is; we can't adequately use the term until we've defined it. To this end, I would like to submit this as a working definition: "Art is anything created for the purpose of communicating the sensations of emotional response to, or creating emotional response in, those who experience it."
Aesthetics is the theoretical study of the arts and related types of behavior and experience. It is traditionally regarded as a branch of philosophy, concerned with the understanding of beauty and its manifestations in art and nature. However, in the latter 20th century there developed a tendency to treat it as an independent science, concerned with investigating the phenomena of art and its place in human life. Yet, what in a field with a hazy line in between being classified as a science or study of beliefs is considered data for determining what can be studied? It can simply be drawn to the only three things involved in the process of art : The creator, the person experiencing, and the art itself.
Every picture taken is unique and is has its own characteristics given to it by its taker. Much like every individual person, each photo has a story and an attitude. All these distinctive qualities are given to the picture by the photographer with a particular purpose. To set up the desired image, there must be proper steps taken in order to insure perfection. The first...
Today most art education programs are made up of four components. One of these components is art aesthetics. Aesthetics is the study of the nature of a piece of artwork. It analyzes the work by asking specific questions regarding the artist and the piece. The viewer becomes the judge in a sense. It tries to discover what the artwork might be representing. They could also ask what type of emotion the artist was trying to convey in their work. The viewer also takes part in analyzing the physical aspects and characteristics of the work. It focuses on the use of color, sequence and synchrony of an artwork. It notes the artist’s craftsmanship, artistic ability and proficiency in technique (Hoffman 1999).
views as to what art is; and as they say, beauty is in the eye of the