Photography as Art

Photography has been a form of art for a long time now. Though most of the conservatives still think of photography as only a means to capture some moments as exactly as it is. But nonetheless it is a visual art form. Specially with the advent of Digital age, photography has transformed like never before. There are a huge capacity of photos that you can take at a go. There are a wider range of in camera settings you can control without having to change your film. There are great tools to give your photographs the perfect finish through Photoshop. There are ever more effects to experiment with. What would take days in the dark room would now be possible in just a few hours at most. Oh! the digital age! How we love it or hate it!

Yes, I love it and hate it! Sometimes I wonder that man are given too many chances to make mistakes in the digital age. So they are growing impatient and aggressive. Where as the flexibilities the digital age brings on. Vinci would have painted the Monalisa in a day may be. But that's Painting. Let's come back to the topic - Photography as art.

There are two clearly divided sects in the Digital age. First group takes photography as a single shot event. They put maximum weight on the process of composing and shooting a photo and prefer no or minimal Photoshop edit. The second group usually uses Photoshop to the maximum capabilities. This group will click on anything and everything, without bothering about lighting, composition and other things the first group is worried about. There is an extreme sub group to this group who go for extreme Photoshop so that the photograph is almost a painting, all unnecessary things cloned out, extra things added in and so on, and then claim that is what was actually photographed. This is where the first group starts shouting, "Cheat".

But the wise know that the art of composition, lighting and shooting technique with the power of digital technology is what makes a photograph great. All you need is to acknowledge that you did apply the some age-old dark room techniques, albeit, in a digital way. Just for the sake of beautifying this post I have put a photograph shot by me. Now you should guess which group I belong to! :D