When Photography Becomes An Art

Northern Advocate, 19 April 1947, Page 4

When Photography Becomes An Art

“THERE io quite a widespread opinion that photography is not an art mainly because of the large part that the purely mechanical tool, the camera, plays.”

These were the opening remarks of a lecture on photography given by Mrs Owen Jensen in connection with the Community Art Service. Mrs Jensen opened an exhibition of photographs from New Zealand camera clubs including the Whangarei Camera Club. “The artist, with his brush, pencil or chisel, creates with his hand what his mind wills him to do,” Mrs Jensen said. “In taking a photograph the hand plays a very small part, but the mind's share is just as great. The result in both cases may be a work of art—or it may not. “There is nothing easier,” Mrs Jensen continued, “than to load your camera, find a subject in the viewfinder, and press the button. You send the film to be processed and, most probably, you have quite a recognisable likeness of mother sitting on a box on the back porch with an

'f array of tea towels and a canary in y a cage, all in perfect focus, h “As a background, photography of this sort may be valuable to you as a f record of things as they are, but it is - certainly a long cry from being a ii work of art. 1 CONVEYING EMOTION t “The claim to rank as art depend: -i on the emotion experienced, expressec } and conveyed to others, and to d< e this in music, painting or photography - there must be three main ingredients f imagination, composition and techni cal ability. “Imagination comes first because r without that, you will never produce - anything that anyone will want to see j or hear more than once. Your work , must express some feeling or emotion “Composition is next, because you ; must arrange your objects in such a i way that the essential points form a complete whole. “This, I think, is easier for the painter than the photographer. A painter can pick out what he wants and just ignore the rest. The photographer has more difficulty deciding just what is necessary and significant and how to get it without including unnecessary matter. He must remember that he is ' I grouping objects in a frame, thus cre- ; ating something that is quite artificial. “We don’t see nature in a frame—- ! the eye leads us from one thing to 1 another and the whole is linked together harmoniously—usually. It is when we begin to select objects that we must have some idea of composition, to arrange them so that they have ; a definite relationship between them iand that they are arranged in the most significant manner. NATURE NOT HELPFUL “Whistler said that nature is nearly always wrong—wrong in that pictures are rarely found ready made. “Find essential points that will express the feelings of grandeur, beauty, fear or other emotions, that are aroused. It is most helpful to look at good works of art and study the trai ditions adopted by the great masters 1 of painting. “This does not mean that you j should try to do in monochrome what they do in colour. Both are de- ! pendent on the action of light on the 'subject and there is hardly a type of i lighting used in photography that has j not been used by some of the great painters. | “Technical skill has been left until last, not because it is not important, i but because you can’t make a picture with just imagination and a know- , ledge of composiion. I feel that too much emphasis is apt to lie laid on the part filters and formulas and lenses play. “You must have a good idea of the , limitations of photographic materials 1 and their behaviour, but you can take most successful pictures without an elaborate darkroom, expensive camera, and array of lenses and filters, as long as you realise the limitations of your equipment.”