Can photography be art?

Good for you. Writing that ambiguous is bad writing.

Come into a restaurant just to say all the food sucks and see how long before they ask you to leave. If you're gonna be in a photography form and say this isn't an art, why are you even here other than to troll? This isn't a chocolate and vanilla debate of taste. Dismiss every single posters images as not art, that's fine. That's a subjective matter of taste. I have no qualms with that. But to say the craft isn't an art spits on so much hard work by so many to make this art form possible and evolved to where it is today where even an idiot without knowledge of cameras can take amazing images...GTFO with that sorta noise.

So Bill, is this art to you? because it's not to me.

Danny.

@OpenCube

I don’t agree with LeeJay’s comments, but I’m sure as heck not going to argue with him, plenty of other folk here to fill that role.
Too long in the tooth and too jaded to deal with “button pushers.” lol

Ah, but it's not ambiguity, you see, they say it's depth from the writer waiting to be mined by others for for subconscious insights 😁

Documentary!

This thread turned from a simple question of whether photography can be art (spoiler: yes, it can) to which photographs can be considered art (a contentious topic). I am not sure that everyone realizes that those are two unrelated topics.

But there is at least one person saying it can't.

Both are contentious topics ... as are some other things that have been posted in the thread. Contention seems to happen a lot when people disagree.

That was not the point. The point was that the two are unrelated topics once you accept that everything can be art. E.g., sitting on a chair can be art (see Marina Abramovic).

P.S.: One wrong-way driver does not mean that the road goes in both directions.

One?

Try googling "is photography art" and see how many pages of articles you can turn up.

It seems to me you are struggling to cope with people who have a different to your opinion.

I'm still struggling to understand how photography is "entirely different" from cinematography.

I think the fact that at least two conflicting answers exist for the same question in this thread is more interesting and significant than the fact that at least two different questions have been asked and answered in this thread.

In any case, my point - the one about how easily contention enters discussions - remains.

@LeeJay

www.moma.org/collection/about/curatorial-departments/photography#

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) began collecting modern photography in 1930 and established the department in 1940. The Museum's holdings of more than 25,000 works constitute one of the most important collections of modern and contemporary photography in the world.

Why not mosey down and check it out?
11 West 53rd Street.

Still photography and video is permitted for personal, noncommercial use only unless otherwise noted. Flash, tripods, and camera extension poles are not allowed.

This question and thread is in the wrong century, go back one then ask the question. Heck, I just finished perusing my newly bought book on Herzog in which the debate then was, can a photograph be in colour and still be considered art?

Or remember the can an inkjet print be art debates. They even came up with a name for inkjet prints that is the French word for ejaculation to disguise their nature.

I tried and did not find any serious content that doubted that photography could be art.