What Is Photography?

According to Wikipedia, at the time of this writing, photography is defined as follows:

The art, science, and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film, or electronically by means of an image sensor. Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure. The result in an electronic image sensor is an electrical charge at each pixel, which is electronically processed and stored in a digital image file for subsequent display or processing. The result in a photographic emulsion is an invisible latent image, which is later chemically developed into a visible image, either negative or positive depending on the purpose of the photographic material and the method of processing. A negative image on film is traditionally used to photographically create a positive image on a paper base, known as a print, either by using an enlarger or by contact printing.

To put it another way, photography is the capturing and focusing of light from the three-dimensional real world onto a two-dimensional surface. The camera lens focuses the light onto a digital sensor or film. The technology may change over time, but the fundamentals will not. There is no substantial difference between film and digital, for example. Good film photographers transition to digital photography easily because the basics of exposure and composition are fundamentally the same in both mediums.

That is the bare bones, science-based definition, but it doesn’t even begin to answer the question, what is photography? A more useful answer can be realized by looking at photography and its role in society. This is covered in much more depth in later chapters, but here is the two-minute version. Up until a couple hundred years ago, the only way to make a visual record of the world was to draw or paint it. Obviously, these skills are beyond the ability of most people and are very time consuming; therefore, with rare exceptions, only carefully selected and usually contrived moments were recorded. This is why portrait painting was so dominant up until the 19th century, after which time the camera replaced the brush and pencil and portrait paintings waned.

A simplified definition: Photography is the capturing and focusing of light from the three-dimensional real world onto a two-dimensional surface.

It was some time before technology was such that the camera could be used for candid work, the taking of a photograph on the spur of the moment of subjects that were unaware they were being photographed. This was the point at which photography became more than a cheaper and more convenient form of painting or drawing. For the first time, the camera could be used to record something approaching reality, and not just a version especially contrived for the photographer, such as a portrait sitting.

This is an example of an image that just wouldn’t have happened prior to digital photography. I was writing some notes for this book and I became curious as to how the spiral binder would look in a photograph. All I had to do was turn on my compact camera and fire off a few shots. The image stabilization meant that I didn’t have to set up lighting or spend time setting up a tripod, and the macro setting meant that I could get in as close as I needed to.

Most of the recent developments in photography, from those first candid images until the present day, have been ones of convenience. A perfectly good compact camera can now be purchased for around a hundred dollars, and the darkroom has been replaced by the computer, which is a device most of us already own. With digital, so called “film” is now virtually free. The upshot is that millions of people are recording every conceivable part of reality, and also publishing their efforts for the world to see on social networking websites such as Facebook. Photography is no longer a separate thing that looks in on society from the outside, but rather is an integral part of society.

The relationship between the photographer and photography as a whole is one of the most important parts of the question of what photography is, but it is a chapter you will have to write yourself. Even if you never write an article about your own relationship to photography—a manifesto describing what photography is to you—any time spent considering this relationship will bear fruit. It is also good to realize that we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves. This awareness can ease the sense of isolation that can come from a photographer being a somewhat detached observer as opposed to a full-on participant in events.

To my mind, it is impossible to define photography without addressing the issue of whether or not it is a legitimate art form. My view on the subject can be summed up very simply by the following statement: Photography is an art form every bit the equal to other visual arts, such as painting and sculpture. Many disagree with this statement and seek to pigeonhole photography as nothing more than a technical skill. As far as I am concerned, this is an old argument that was laid to rest in the early part of the 20th century. Chapter 8, which is about the history of photography, covers this in some depth.