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Digital & Standard Photography

    Whatever your views on photography as an art form, there is no argument that photography has transformed the world and role of art in the last 150 years.

    Before the introduction of photography, the main role of artists was to paint realistic portraits of those who could afford it. This involved the subject remaining in the same position for hours on end while the artist painstakingly transferred every detail in front of him onto the canvas. As it required a lot of time, effort and materials, it did not come cheap, and therefore was only available to the very rich. The style associated with this type of painting is known as ‘Realism’.

    The introduction of photography provoked artists to change the way they saw and made them re-examine the nature and potential of paint as a medium, as photography was obviously more successful in representing a scene, which raised the issue of the viability of Portraiture. Photography had the ability to capture a moment in time realistically, a feature that painting very obviously lacked.

    Photography may well have put artists at risk when it was first introduced, but in truth, it released painting from it’s responsibility as a realistic representative medium, allowing artists to start experimenting and lead on to the endless styles that came about as a result, particularly in the 20th Century.

Photography had five major roles in transforming the art world:

It allowed painters to capture scenes that they would not have been able to previously, such as an urban street image. They could take the photo to the studio and work on it from there.

It allowed Portrait painters to abandon the lengthy sittings that their subjects had to endure.

It released painting from its responsibility as the primary realistic representative medium, extending the scope for new styles.
It allowed artists from all over the world to view famous artworks without the need for expensive travel to go and ‘see the works’, due to the ease in which images could be reproduced.

It (arguably) became an art form in it’s own right, with photographers cropping up as artists using the medium in their work.

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