Is photography an art?

From “Quarantine walks” series

The discussion of whether or not photography should be considered art is a topic that has been debated for hundreds of years. For over a hundred and fifty years ,to be more precise, since photography started to be part of everyday life. There are strong arguments for both sides, and there always will be pros and cons to each theory.

Photography was always compared with painting. Painting is an art as it involves the painter’s creativity. My argument is that a photographer also needs and uses his own creativity and, even more, creativity exists in everyone of us regardless of what we are doing.

The painter is looking at a landscape (or different subject) and recreates it in a subjective way, a way in which the painter imposes his own vision. But the same does the photographer: if the photographer doesn’t look for the right angle, the right light, or for the right lens to recreate and express his own feelings, the viewer won’t be able to see what he is seeing.

The painter is mixing the colours in such a way that colours are expressing the painter’s feelings. But the same does the photographer: choosing a certain type of film, processing the film in a certain way or processing a digital image with certain software. Light cannot be mixed or manipulated in the same ways that paint or pigments can, but a photographer can manipulate light to work within its limits.

So what’s the difference? I don’t know and I’m not sure if I want to know the exact answer. I know that writing is an art and the writers are considered artists. Somebody once said that an image is worth a thousand words. That means that if I show you an image, I almost wrote a short novel and if I show you a series of images – an entire book.

From “Quarantine walks” series