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Images need to be raised to some kind of heightened awareness to become art. Simple documentation doesn’t normally do that.

As example, in Irving Penn’s work where he separates New Guinea tribes-people by photographing them in a tent is in my opinion, both art and documentary. It is a different kind of documentary, which separates the subjects and their garb from the distracting background of their natural environment. Doing so brings them into a modern world of tent and electronic flash, which brings those people into the modern age and produces a radically different way of thinking about them as subjects. That change in the way he chose to shoot, gave it a new dimension and altered the way it can be seen. That is what I think makes his work artistic.

Art imagery doesn’t have to be a photo story either. Intention has a lot to do with it. Documentary can become art and art can become documentary. But not always. Dorothea Lange’s work as an example is basically documentary image making. However the way in which she saw her subjects and she shot her work, you don’t need the other images to understand what the image is likely to be about. Great images show us something more than just the subject. Documentary images usually need a caption or a voice to tell us what is happening. Art usually triggers thought processes without the need for narration. The thought process is triggered by ambiguity. It is ambiguity that makes the work more provocative and perhaps more universal.

Art is more than person, place or thing. It is a triggering mechanism for introspection. The subject shown is not what the image is about. Art takes the subject and twists it into new meaning. The things shown, their relationships, the way they interact with the light, produce a new concept to ponder.

Some may think that the difference is simply style. However, I believe it is a much more complex argument. Style is the way someone produces an image. It has more to do with the personal aesthetic of the photographer. Art is something that is shaped by an idea or a reaction.

I don’t think style is the right word. Art is not a style in the sense of being a specific kind of thing. Art is innovative and exploratory and therefore isn’t defined in any precise way. Art is creative in that it doesn’t follow expected rules. It is creative because it can’t be easily defined in conventional terms.

Art grows with its need to express, the artists intent, as well as the social and political situation of the times. Art is a much more complex activity while simultaneously being much less restricted than documentary. Art is free to be what it needs to become. Documentary by itself – is restricted to more conventional ways of showing or explaining a situation. Documentary is a more mainstream form of communication. Documentary is a way to inform and therefore needs to follow certain levels of convention.

Documentary as art can and does happen – just not very often. It happens when the images produce a heightened awareness within the viewer. Style has little to do with whether images become art. Style is a kind of aesthetic signature that a photographer may present in their work. Style has more to do with how the image is processed, the camera, Tonal and color characteristics, composition and other things that are common in a particular photographers work. Art is a transformation of a subject/object/idea into something more profound. That can happen with documentary. But most of the work that fits that category is usually far removed from art. It usually takes an artist to produce documentary that becomes art.

Art generally works in the abstract. Great art is powerful due to its ambiguous nature. Art doesn’t inform as much as it expresses meaning or insight through suggestion. It is more of a puzzle that we work through in order to come to some kind of conclusion. The ambiguity becomes much more powerful than fact. It leads the viewer to a point of reflecting on what they are seeing and hopefully to a state of curiosity, questioning, or a conclusion of some kind.

That is not to say, that art can’t emerge from documentary or perhaps, the other way around. While they can work as one, they are almost opposites in their function.

Documentary implies fact. Art arouses thought.

Documentary is usually serious facts. Art is generally a serious play on imagination and thought.

It is possible to produce both simultaneously. But it is pretty rare that documentary becomes art. However, when it does, it usually serves a much higher purpose.

Please have a look at some of my other posts here.

I cover many photographic topics and techniques in my book.  – Great Photography book for any creative Photographer.

I am currently working on a new book about photography, which I will announce when it comes closer to the publishing date.

Rethinking Digital Photography – John Neel

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