Photography always seemed like a strange hobby to me, although it is very popular among my friends and peers. I always thought it was a little silly to take so many photos. I thought, "if you take so many photos, you can't enjoy what you're seeing when it happens!" But now I understand that you can (and do) see the beauty of what is around you, even when you are focused on taking a photo of it.
I went to both The Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and there were several photography galleries that I walked through. I didn't think I would enjoy them much, as they were simply photos of random items and scenes that people saw and decided to take photos of. I didn't see much that was special about them. I thought to myself "well, I could take pictures of that kind of stuff. What makes this so much better than the thousands of photos I've taken on my iPhone?"
I began to think about a long discussion that we had in my Spanish class sophomore year of high school. The question was "what is art, and what is not art?" If you think about it for a minute or two, you'll realize why we weren't able to come to a conclusion at all over the six-week art unit, much less in a few minutes.
The discussions we had were floating around in my mind while I was surveying the galleries of photography. "What makes this art? Why is this photo in a gallery that is so esteemed?" I realized that it isn't the photo itself, or even the sharpness and contrasts that are used to make the photo interesting that makes a photo art.
I believe that what makes the photo art is the photographer, as they must look for something to photograph and they have to have a vision of something that is beautiful.
A photo that really stood out to me was a photo of a store clerk pushing a grocery cart. This doesn't sound like anything special, and really, it isn't. But the artist saw this image and decided that it was something small and underappreciated, yet something that was beautiful and deserved attention.
The beauty of a painter's work isn't necessarily the finished product, or how they use their paintbrush, but rather how they view something to be painted, and why they painted it. The art of photography is this way too, in that the photo itself isn't the most important part, and the use of the camera and editing tools isn't everything. The meaning and beauty of what is being captured is the truly beautiful part.
The photos I saw at the museums I visited provoked many questions for me about which ones I enjoyed and didn't, what I thought was worthy of photographing, and why I thought certain photos were more valuable than others based on my personal experiences and views.
My eyes were definitely opened to the world of photography as an art, and I now have a deeper interest in taking my own photos. These photos aren't only for me to post on my new Instagram page dedicated to my photography, but also to remind me that there is beauty in the small things in life and that someone just needs to be around to notice them.
