This is an age-old question that I hear from time to time and although it seems to come from the baby boomer generation much more than any other, it is worth talking about, as I still hear from time to time, “How is a photo art”? As a gallery owner myself I have seen this line of questioning firsthand and can speak to it probably better than anyone could since I eat breathe and sleep high end Fine Art Photography every day of my life! Also, I might add in here that I have a Mother who has the distinction of being an American Master and her name is Ruth Mayer, who also happens to have a Fine Art Gallery in downtown Laguna Beach, California. Growing up, I was all but required to work in the family business during summers where I learned all about the business side of the art industry and learning everything from a Fine Art Oil perspective.

ARTWORK BY MARLON HOLDEN “WILD HEART” LIMITED EDITION OF 50

What I learned may come as a surprise to some of you and also not so surprising to others. As I have been living and breathing the business of Fine Art within my gallery, we are seeing two major shifts in consumer age gaps and the mindsets or beliefs of which each generation has adopted based upon what they were raised around. Fine Art Photography sales as a whole has an age demographic of around 35 to 68 years of age. The reality is that most of the younger generation still hasn’t acquired a home yet and won’t be in the market for Fine Art for some time. Anyone older than around the age of 68 generally has a tendency to only desire oil paintings and traditional fine art concepts, as they were taught to see things much differently than we were growing up, as I am somewhere in between the two age ranges.

With that said, Fine Art is truly up to the “Eye of The Beholder” so to speak. In many ways, middle aged progressives are influenced heavily by the reality tv, social media influenced marketing designs of our time and influencers from all around the world have romanticized travel along with wanderlust to a high degree. I have noticed over the years, that oil paintings are going much to the wayside as Fine Art Photography really is just picking up more and more momentum. What I am seeing now days is that people can identify with places that they have been and with what is real. Regardless of whether by palette knife or the drop of the shutter button, places that people have visited or romanticized about will always be things that people love. Combine this with a clean, modern home, there’s not much else out there than can match the likes of a clean recess mounted acrylic print!

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So, can photography be Fine Art? Let me explain it another way. If you take a picture with any type of camera, it is merely a picture. It quickly documents a moment no matter what the subject matter is. At its very core, the definition of a work of art is by an artist creating something with the intent to create a work of art. With intent is a very important distinction in my opinion, as most simple pictures are only but a mere arbitrary capture. However, the moment you have intent behind your action, travelling hours, days, even weeks to capture a moment! Then after all of that, maybe you actually captured the moment or maybe you did not! At which point, the chase of that moment will continue until you have the raw ingredients literally, with RAW files in hand on your drive. In that moment, did the artist achieve the desired vision, did the artist actually capture the frames and truly get the ingredients by which to in an artisan’s ability conceptualize the process of reconstructing that moment for everyone to see not as a picture, but as a Fine Art Photograph? You see, hidden in the plain words of this text I write, dictates in my mind what differences separate a piece of Photography and a picture, a work of Art vs a simple click. There lays a distinction of the artistry by the way in which one conveys the moment as described in the way the final work is depicted through effort, planning, technique, mastery, editing and finally vision.

ARTWORK BY MARLON HOLDEN “POINT ARENA LIGHTHOUSE” LIMITED EDITION OF 50

In my opinion, photographers take pictures by documenting moments. To take it a step further a photographer will find art or beauty in nature and capture a photograph, but an artist will utilize a camera merely as a paintbrush by which they capture the essence of a moment as brush strokes in turn they will use as the canvas to create ultimately, a vision that becomes a moment to thine own and ultimately transformed into a work of Fine Art Photography.

ARTWORK BY MARLON HOLDEN “HALF DOME REFLECTIONS” LIMITED EDITION OF 50

Now, there is no doubt that I could potentially ruffle a few feathers amongst the likes of traditionalist or purist photographers, who may deny that any sort of manipulation or artistry on behalf of the artisan/photographer is considered by them to be photography at all. Many traditionalists subscribing to the tradition that photography should only be limited to the subject matter along with the existing conditions alone, however that is okay as I am not writing this to determine who is right or wrong but rather what others out in the world of Fine Art have to say about the creativity and stature of the medium one way or the other. Not only that photography is art, but should an artisan create a vision through his or her eyes with that medium, how is the perception of the buying public who arguably wins the debate with paying their hard earned cash in order to have it grace the walls of their multi-million dollar homes! While I do not dare allude to the fact that one person’s art is diminished through another’s, I am simply looking at it by the definitions given through the Merriam Websters dictionary for Fine Art and the term Artwork. As anyone who has mastered the activity of a fine skill in creating a work of art can be considered by the beholder to be a work of Fine Art.

There are many ways to look at this whether you look at some of the masters such Ansel Adams, Mary Ellen Mark, Henri Cartier, Richard Avedon, Andreas Gursky, Annie Leibovitz and so many others you can easily reason that no matter the subject matter was, these artisans took their study of photography well beyond a simple picture. Their desire to study composition, elements and light exemplified artistry to a degree that bordered on madness to most. The dedication and commitment to craft was not a picture in any way whatsoever, but rather exemplified as a photographic work of art, captured by a master with a vision and a palette that contained the world, along with it a camera as their brush!

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With the entire idea of Fine Art Photography being about capturing a moment and then molding it into the vision by which you have is a truly exhilarating idea and while I believe we now live in a day and age where this is well accepted, I can only imagine what this would have been like for artisans before our time, when a photo was perceived as only a picture and not artwork, created by an artisan with a vision with intent.

So, to that I answer back with a resounding yes, photography absolutely is Fine Art and to the visionaries out there working hard to hone their craft in order to create a vision, breathing life into its very moment through artistic render; you are the future! As long as we dare to create a moment, to take our craft and blend our minds eye with our artistry, we can bring light and joy to the world with our creations. For without music, cinema, architecture, theater or fine art photography, are we even living? I believe that artwork in most any form, painted with any type of paintbrush is done in order to bring beauty to our eyes and delight our senses. Photography absolutely is art, and, in every way, I believe that Art truly embraces those on a creative photographic journey to delight our senses!

ARTWORK BY MARLON HOLDEN “STILLNESS WITHIN” LIMITED EDITION OF 50

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