What to Call It When You Photograph Someones Art

Do you always feel bad about photographing someone else'southward art ? This has troubled me in the past, particularly with graffiti and street fine art. Is there any worth to information technology?

Is it merely an act of relaying the creation of others to your tribe, in which example there is zero talent in capturing merely the human activity of spreading is already a grade of service to the author and others ?

Is is simply a pure act of opportunistic grabbing that creates zero value for anyone ? Or, worse, plagiarism ?

Or is information technology a form of art just equally valid as the original ?

Inquire any number of people and you're likely to get as many replies. And the questioning is non just about graffiti but also architecture, statues, stained glass, paintings, a pic gear up …

My answer to the title question lacks philosophical balance in its resounding NO. No, it isn't stealing. Yeah. Yes there is some artistic merit to photographing other people's work. Here's why.

First of all, does anyone object to portrait photography ? Style photography ?

You can debate whether the photographs in a article of clothing catalogue are a class of art or not. You lot tin can argue whether the summer vacation family unit shot and the selfie in front end of Big Ben are fine art or non. Only no 1 objects to these types of photographs in the way that photographing graffiti tin be criticized. Even the most basic photo of a man seems preferable to something like the moving-picture show above :

You have to direct the man ("push to the right, dear, daddy doesn't fit in the frame") pregnant there is human interaction.
Y'all have to "plan" the shot, where as the graffiti was but in that location on the wall, at that place's zero talent in photographing it. No deliberate act of creation.

Only I disagree.

Starting time, let's settle the question of ownership. At that place is non an ounce of my DNA or education in either of these pretty ladies. Except for family shots, which are very rarely a significant fine art form, not one photographer tin claim that the model's qualities have anything to practise with him/her. Simply similar the street art, the Gilt Gate and the Taj Mahal, the model is someone else'southward doing and creation.

Sure, good pros accept their own makeup / wearable / lighting specialists or personal talents, altering the model's appearance. Only this is no different to choosing many aspects of how y'all photograph someone else's piece of work. With models as with statues, you tin be creative and chose to tell a story, or you lot can be literal, uninspiring and boring.

It's the style y'all cull to photograph the work of art that makes your photo strong or plagiarist. Simply like there'due south a different between a Gregory Crewdson portrait setup and a paparazzi shooting Pippa's hind quarters at a rich dude'south wedding ceremony.

Secondly, when it comes to street art, I observe in that location's another interesting ownership-related statement. One that's plainly obvious below.

The background here is one of a gear up of architectural sketches presented on the walls of a big department store in Paris. Then, there'southward that big yellow graffito blob on the left. And then, a larger number of tags superimposed on the whole thing. In that location, y'all can see two stickers, ane of which borrows someone else's photograph (far left) and the other feels more than personal. So what I'one thousand photographing is not anyone's art only a layering of contributions.

One obvious contribution of the photographer is clarity of meaning (selection from a usually very complex scene). The final result above seems fairly obvious, whereas the scene was a mess.

Some other is the creativity you use to add your own layer of meaning. Your own accept. The stronger the original art, the more than yous have to decide to go with the original idea or denounce it. You can photograph something pretty and limit your story to "hey guys and gals, expect how pretty (or funny) this statue is".

But the stronger the declaration in the original art, the more you take to take a stance with respect to the meaning, rather than limit yourself to the appearance of the creation.

This is why photographing works of art is valuable in itself. In many ways, a modeling session is just a gig. Whereas photographing graffiti requires finding and seeing and interpreting and creating your ain bulletin from existing material and context. Unlike many photo shoots, at that place is no recipe for this.

And then if you approach this subject field as an creative person, with consistency in significant and style, then yes, you're creating art.

The truth is that the very act of creating a photograph is a prevarication. Every witting decision yous make before clicking the shutter and during post processing is a personal statement. A deprival of reality by your personal biases. That'due south why non-photoshoping rules in photo competitions are then very stupid. Framing, exposure time, aperture, exposure bounty, focus point, depth of field, lens rendering, focal length (visual compression), white remainder, saturation, … all of these decisions you brand are far more than extreme departures from reality than the cloning of a road sign.

By refusing photoshoped photographs competition organisers are in essence making your responsible for what you have no command over (the beauty of the model, the power lines on the horizon) and denying you lot the correct to create a visual statement based only on your view points. The correct to be an artist. Run away from any competition with such ape-age rules.

What I'grand proverb is that the conscious act of selecting the various parameters that will determine what the final epitome will look like are the very definition of creation. Whether the discipline is a waterfall, a cute puppy, a graduation anniversary, a postage stamp, a model, a painting, a statue, a monument, a gunkhole, a automobile … is irrelevant. Making pictures is creation. The more involved you are in that creation, the less important the field of study thing.