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FRAGMENTED
Photography vs. Compography... and Art
What is art? I define it as being a personal creative expression executed in a medium one has mastered. In the visual arts, especially photography, I can recognize what is and what it's not. On my website there is a section called "Stock Art". It is in its posting infancy and where photographs of Australia and many more that are back logged will be archived. (Enjoy what is already posted at http://jamesschotgallerystudio.com/stock-art/). This section is mostly (but not exclusively) populated by land and cityscapes. A better name may have been "Decorative" Stock, because it's mostly (but not exclusively) an artistic collaboration between other creative human constructions or with the divinity and me, but it's not my photographic art.
What is photographic art? I have been an exponent of defining photographic art as its essence created exclusively through photographic processes, in which lighting, camera, and optics have a primary role with a secondary application of basic darkroom techniques.
Photography is defined as painting with light. To create my artwork I see one-single camera digital file, or formerly one piece of color or b/w film, as my blank canvas on which I can paint with light, using all the possibilities of a camera, optics, and my skills
in the process. Below are samples of Fragmented, my
latest
work from a series in progress.
Most of what I consider my photographic art is to be found in the gallery section, which contains a half dozen different series of my completed art work. You can find it at
How does this differ from a masterful and expanding art form that is not photography, but generally made from photographs and graphics that I call "Compography"? An excellent example for this art form is the creative work by Madalina Iordache-Levay. The blank canvas for these creative images (not photographs) is a digital computer file. Multiple photos {not needed to be exceptional as they commonly serve to provide parts for the visual purposes in a composited image), scans, and graphic files are brought into a computer and blended, composited, altered, enhanced with artistic applications, which culminate in a single creative computer file or finished canvas, a compograph to be output for display. The only shortcoming of this process of note is less skilled photo takers also try to apply artistic applications in an attempt fix or otherwise make poor photos somehow interesting, but in the right hands exceptional compography by artists like Louis Davis and Madalina is amazing.
The question for me is why as yet this new art form hasn't evolved to have its own identity and reward system that would be super beneficial, and remains incorrectly and confusingly labeled photography that is very detrimental. Why can't the visual arts be like the movies that have numerous Oscar designations, for instance, best movie, best animation, best documentary, etc? We'll get to the answer, but for now I hope you enjoy the in camera creations of Fragmented with this last piece from the first session.
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