I ran across an article on a supposed art photography site recently that discouraged the use of one photo app and promoting the use of others, which is fairly typical since most artists have their favorite tools and usually have little problem telling others about them. What really got me was that they were discouraging a camera app for the iPhone that has you select your lens and film effects before taking the picture, known in the art world as pre-visualization, or simply knowing your gear and what it does, and promoting the use of apps that offer heavy post processing tools. Really frightening was their use of the phrase, “app it ’til it sings.”
“App it ’til it sings?” Don’t even get me started on the use of the word app as a verb. it’s a tool, not an action! Far worse than the bad grammar is the notion that using an app will somehow turn an ordinary photo into art. I have some bad news for people who think this way; using any type of effects on your photos, whether it’s a grunge texture, a sloppy border, or tweaking colors only adds a visual style to the image, it does not make it art. It can make an otherwise good photo look even better, but it can’t make crap look like art. Garbage in, garbage out.
So what makes a photo art? Simply put there is no one particular thing that constitutes art. There are compositional rules that help balance an image and guidelines that help suggest things like movement or emotion, but an image that plucks the heart strings of one viewer will go completely unnoticed by another. Unless there is a naked woman in the image, in which case it will get noticed by all. It will not make it art, but it will definitely get it noticed. The articles in this blog that get the most viewers are the ones with pictures of half naked women.
When it comes to applying a visual style to an image you should be pre-visualizing the final image regardless of how you get there. If you are using an app on a smartphone that adds the style at the time of capture you should familiarize yourself with the effects of different settings and be able to judge in advance what will add the style you want to the image you are about to take. If you are processing your images in post you should be thinking about your post process while you are composing your shot. If you simply take lots of random captures and hope that you will somehow be able to “app it ’til it sings” later on you are very unlikely going to end up with any art. That process is fine if you are looking for stylized snapshots, but not for art.
By the way, there is nothing wrong with snapshots. I take them all the time. I have a family that I love to photograph and vacations that I love to document. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, a big part of how I familiarize myself with my available processing tools is by using them on these snapshots. When an art photo moment comes along I know what tools will get me the final look I want for that image.
In summation, stylizing an image only makes it art if it was actually art to start with. A stylized snapshot is just a very good snapshot. Oh, and app is not a verb.
