Nikon Owner Issue 19
Photography As Art by Sue Bishop
Sue has exhibited her work many times, and in Spring 2004 held a six-week solo exhibition at the Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library in London SW1. As well as selling prints to clients in the U.K., Belgium, America and Australia, she has contributed photographs and articles to photographic magazines and has sold work for use in travel brochures and books. Her range of photographic greetings cards was shortlisted for the Henries Awards in 2000, and in the same year her photograph of a wildflower meadow in Andalucia was highly commended in the prestigious BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition, and exhibited in the Natural History Museum in London before going on tour worldwide.
Following publication of her book Photographing Flowers, Sue Bishop returns to Nikon Owner with her article - Photography as Art.
A competent photographer must have a good grasp of the basic techniques of photography. Ideally this will include an understanding of exposure, lighting, the relationship between aperture and shutter speed, depth-of-field, the different perspectives achieved by using different lenses, and so on. Armed with this knowledge he or she will be able to make an image that is technically good. But at what point can a photograph be considered to be artistic, and how does one bridge the gap between a good "record" photograph and something that may be considered to be art?
A knowledge of the fundamental techniques of photography is the necessary first step; the photographer then uses these techniques as the building blocks or tools with which to make a more subjective image, just as a painter uses his understanding of how to mix his colours and put them onto canvas to produce his own version of reality. It's a case of using the tools available - in our case, camera, lenses, filters and so on - to create an image which satisfies its creator on an emotional level - and if other people respond to the image emotionally too, then so much the better!