The Beginning of Pictorialism and Other Forms of Art Photography

The modern term for this kind of art photography is pictorialism, which refers to the method of construction of a picture from the point of view of shooting with a camera and then developing it with art in mind. Pictorialism came to an early end because photographers began to feel that it was too restrictive by nature and unsuited to the avant-garde leaning new generation of photographers such as Malcolm Arbuthnot, who thought that in pictorialism it was form over subject and more emphasis was being placed on design rather than on the picture.

With digital work, art photography is becoming more prevalent nowadays and, with the help of a computer, certain effects can be deliberately achieved so photographs can be made to look like an oil painting or as pastel, but this is governed mainly by the expertise of the photographer’s own abilities.

Buying art photography at a gallery is relatively a simple task and with the advent of online art photography galleries, buyers can locate photographs that best suit their individual desires and tastes without the need of commuting or attending art exhibitions. Art photography is basically art that is creative, more so when it is visually aesthetic and is mostly appreciated for a having lots of imaginative and intellectual content.

The type of camera that is used is that which the photographer is most comfortable with and it may be either manual or automatic. Processing the film may be done by hand and then contact printed for it all depends on the expertise and desire of the photographer and the amount of art that he wishes the photograph to have.

The choice of whether to use black and white photographs or to have colored photos is also dependent on the subject and the way the photographer wishes to present the subject. Art photography is a constantly changing environment with so much scope for improvement, experimentation and advance that the photographer may spend years and years in this sphere and still constantly evolve as a photographer without ever stagnating in any way.