The Art vs. the Capitalism
Friday, November 15, 2013
Nowadays the photography is
everywhere where the bored glare could fall. To imagine our world without
photos is now unbearably difficult, if not even impossible. The photography has
twisted the universal awareness, changing the views of the world for millions
of people. The first time it happened, when the mankind has received the
possibility to freeze the time in snapshots, when the Frenchman Louis Daguerre
invented a way to produce an image. The second time of a universal twist was at
the time of the appearance of instant photography, which has changed not only
the consciousness of humanity, but also all the aspects of our lives.
Commercial photography, creative photography, fashion photography and all the
other countless species of this type of art complemented our life as naturally
as if the still image was the only piece of the puzzle missing during the
formation of civilization.
The genre of photography is
constantly under attack by those individuals, who obstinately refuse to admit its artistic value. During
the XX century photography had a secure right to wear the title of art. The
uniqueness of photography as a phenomenon, as well as its incomprehensibility
gave it a carte blanche. Today the fact of photography does not represent
something extraordinary, and its status as an art had suffered severely. At the
most luxurious art galleries of the most celebrated photographers one can
endlessly hear a debate about whether it is necessary to consider it as a work
of art. Today the picture is no longer perceived as a visual masterpiece, it is
rather a way of transmitting information, a social media, through which one can
send the desired message to the masses.
The term of photo revolution
received its spread in our time due to the fact that the photos were finally
able to get out of the shadow of other Fine Arts and become an independent genre.
In today's educational world of photography, even given the status of a subject,
photography has an extremely wavering position. But what are the objectives of
those who join the rows of young photographers in the beginning of each student
year?
Since the question whether
photography may be righteously called art is still opened, the majority of youthful
photographers are looking not for self-retrospective in pure art, but for a way
to make more money.
The work of commercial
photographer – that is the path most desired for the thousands of freshmen in
every Liberal Arts major. Preferably, they seek for a place in a advertising
cultural center, and the limit of dreams is New York. By some mysterious
reasons, all these dreamers believe that the work of the New York commercial photographer is simple, and
consists solely of imprinting the desired fragments of life in snapshots. There
should be no special approach, no special idea, no some regard from the face of
photographer, because his only task is to perform what he was told. The
purposes of these people are supposed to be purely self-serving. In the view of
the masses, commercial photographers are soulless machines, which serve only as
a support for a camera, however machines with some incredibly huge fees,
amazing acquaintances and no hard work whatsoever. After all, what hard work
can be when you are talking about mechanical actions, a simple push on a single
button?
This approach is insulting
to the entire institute of art as a whole, and to the genre of photography, in
particular. A commercial photographer in New York, or in any other place, for
that matter, is no less artist, than Picasso or Da Vinci. Even following
every instruction of the client, a soulless machine could have never created an
image, which will captivate the accident gaze of an accident passerby. A
soulless machine could have never perceived the human psychology to such
profound depths, which are necessary to make the audience stunned. A soulless
machine could have never seized the magic in every accessible object.
The development of
photography as a separate art form, and its emergence as one of the most
accurate and profound practices that reflect the existence of our society, does
not cease to prove that there is yet something artistic in the so called
capitalistic and “commercial” branch of art. All the classic types and genres
of photography have become a tool of Modern Art, and the fact that photography
captivates reality as it is, without any allowance of subjectivity, makes it
even more profound and irrationally beautiful, than any other.
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