In my online and real-world travels I often come upon discussions on the categorization and compartmentalization of photography. It often starts with questions like “What genre is this photo?” or “Would you consider this fine art?” or “Is this photography or graphic art?“. I sometimes wonder if such questions, or rather the resulting attempts to answer them, are helpful or harmful to the photo or photography in general.
In some sense, categorization helps to focus the viewer on photos to which they care most about or to which they are most attracted to. It can help to give the viewer a sense of authenticity – like in the case of journalistic photography vs. creatively manipulated photography. Although that last point assumes that a photograph can absolutely capture an image as it truly was in the real-world. I believe that is a false assumption. Well, the ability to put a photo into a particular bucket can also aid the photographer is his/her process of creating the photo – whether it be composing the shot in a certain way, or applying the appropriate post-processing.
On the other hand, one can argue that the categorization and compartmentalization of a photo can be too constraining on the artistic intent of the photo. What does it matter what type of photo it is, as long as it appeals to the viewer. Do we need to know that a photo is “not manipulated” vs heavily processed (whether film or digital)? Maybe for legal or forensic purposes (but even then I can argue that a photo is never absolutely representative of real-life).
What is the point of a photo? Is it primarily to benefit the photography? The viewer? The “art” of photography? Society in general? I don’t know.
What do you think?