Sandy Abbott
Painter / Photographer, Melbourne Australia
I am amazed how beautiful the world can be. Looking at a lovely beach on a sunny day can leave me speechless. I am overcome with the beauty of the colors, shapes, textures and the crackling feeling of “Life” permeating the environment. The beaches around Hawaii and Australia, or anywhere in the world, are wonderful for experiencing this.
Many people do not consider photography as “art” because it only takes a split second to take a photo. But there is a lot that goes into that split second. And even more that happens after the photo is taken. A photographer has to choose the subject, decide how to crop it, what angle to shoot from, what camera settings to use etc etc. There are actually hundreds of decisions that need to be made before the photo is taken, especially with the endless setting possibilities on the new digital cameras. Then after the photo is taken, there are 1000s of decisions that can be made about how to modify the image using the infinite possibilities that are available in the new digital image software. Then there are decisions about how to frame the image. So the thought that photography is not an art form just because it is so easy, is just not true.
One important point about art as photography is the concept of subject. A photographer can take a picture of something beautiful and the subject is the art. What I try to do is take a picture of something and present it in such a way so the photograph is beautiful. The photograph becomes the art not the subject. That is not to say I don’t take pictures of beautiful subjects, but more to the point; the photo is “art” because of all the elements mentioned in the previous paragraph.
