Photography is a method of documenting scenes and recording the moments. But it has, also, a great artistic potential. A good photograph can capture special moments, frame a fractions of time, store emotions, meaningful stories or raise some ultimate questions. It can impact a viewer and extend one’s mind with a whole new experience. This is exactly what made it be recognized as an equally valuable art form, along with time – honored fine art forms, such as painting, sculpture and architecture.
There are no rules on how to make a good photograph. It’s a combination of craft, technical skills, sense for aesthetic and talent to organize elements precisely enough to express the captured moment properly. Artists play with subjects, light, forms, textures, shadows, contrast, colors and different styles in order to express themselves, a world around them and a life itself.
Since 19th century, photography evolved and proved its artistic capacity, effecting the history of art in various ways. Today, it is one of the most important artistic mediums of a modern age. Because of its accessibility, affordability and capability to follow development of modern technology, it is to expect a wide-range of its future effects on modern art. Photographers have entered art galleries around the world, but they have taken a step forward. Online photography galleries.
It is becoming quite popular among photographers, especially the beginners, to manage their personal profile and gallery online and to upload and exhibit their work on the internet. This makes their photos available to public in cyber world, open to receive critiques and comments from all kinds of viewers, but also gives them possibility to communicate with other artists and share their experiences in much easier manner.
Furthermore, there are websites that gather artwork collections of many artists, playing a role of a true art galleries, only virtual ones. These sites search the internet, pick profiles with quality photos and creative content and bring them all to one place. Photographs are usually grouped into selections based on a subject, style or a medium used to make a photo. Depending on what you’re interested in, you can use filters to search the site and review only the photos or artists that suit your artistic taste the best.
You can list photography galleries and choose to review landscapes, still life, fashion photos, portraits, nature and many other subjects. If you select galleries based on a style, the sites will offer you fine art, conceptual art, documentary photography, abstract photography, photojournalism and many other. Or you can choose your preferred medium and pick between digital art, black and white photos, color or polaroid photography.
Each photo contains general info about the artist, description of a photograph itself and a link to the artist’s personal
profile. Also, there can be a price listed below if a photograph is on sale.
These websites, an online art galleries, are perfect solution for modern photographers. It’s simple, cheap, available and efficient way to exhibit their work to huge number of viewers, interact with similar artists, get advices and critiques, get in touch with public and possibly earn money from an online sale. Also, virtual photo galleries sites often feature articles about photography, give advices on selling art, promoting artwork and advertise different upcoming photography events. For all art lovers or collectors, these galleries are exceptional sources of photography artworks and artists, providing them with a great experiences while surfing the site, same as if they took a walk down the halls of some real art gallery.
True artists will tell you that you don’t take a photo, you make it. As any other form of art, a photography has its technical, “sterile” side, so as its sensitive, emotional and unsubstantial component. It demands developing of skills, knowledge, technics and using of quality equipment. But also, as any other form of art, there’s a deeper meaning and multilayered message in every good artistic photo. Photographing any scene is an ultimate attempt of capturing a passing moment in its deepest sense. A good photography should reflect a photographer’s observation of a world around him, expressing what he thinks and how he feels about what is being photographed. And finally, as any other form of art, it should use skilled combination of aesthetic, style, composition, objects, structures and all other components to create a picture that will disturb a viewer, intrigue him to think and feel about universal life themes and questions.
Although photography meets all standards of legitimateartistic form, it often faces prejudices of not being taken seriously enough and struggles to be accepted as fine art, along with classic painting. On the other hand, development of digital technology led to expansion of technical capabilities of today’s photography equipment, opening a whole new chapter of modern, high quality photography.
Despite the fact that photography still sometimes needs to fight its place in a world of classic art, many art galleries offer their facilities to photographers. Some of them feature exclusively fine art photography, others are open to experimental exhibitions and multimedial performances, and there are even art galleries providing photography courses and teaching programmes along with exhibitions. Themes and styles vary from vintage, made in an old fashioned way photos, to the modern contemporary art, photojournalism or fashion photography. Photography galleries often represent several artists at one exhibition, featuring one or two exhibitions per month. They are open to the audience during regular working hours of gallery. All of these art galleries also sell photography in all its forms and some of them help artists get in contact with local art dealers, art collectors or different non – profit photography organizations.
“A picture is worth a thousand words” applies to artistic photography without saying. And if you recall that every snapshot is an attempt to capture one unique passing moment and express its beauty, an emotion and a meaning to a viewer, just imagine how many stories, mixed into a great experience, you get to carry out of the gallery, when you spend an hour or two walking down the halls and absorbing these “captured moments” and their stories collected on the walls around you.
Photography art galleries give the opportunity to photographers to show their work, reach the audience through everything they’ve expressed in their photos, get the live feedback reaction from viewers and perhaps even sell some of their works. At the same time, visitors get the chance to wander through the gallery’s rooms, enjoy, learn, get familiar with the art of photography and also be inspired by artists of all kind and everything they’veexpressed using a camera and a photo as a medium to communicate.
It took a long time for photography to gain its deserved place among traditional forms of fine art, such as painting and sculpture, and step into many art galleries as equally valued genre. Photojournalism, as a subgenre of photography, is still struggling to
prove its artistic potential and be accepted and labeled as fine art. It is strongly believed among esteemed critics that photojournalism documents various human events, representing objective reality and thus it cannot be considered for art. Art has to involve subjective expression of an artist and it usually tends to steps away from reality a bit. It’s true that photojournalism derived from news delivery, that its primary aim is to literally represent subjects and events and in addition to that – most of photojournalists consider themselves more of a truth-tellers or whitnesses than pure artists. On the other hand, it is for sure that informative content of these photos can provoke strong emotional reactions, intrigue viewers and leave them puzzled with some universal questions. Photojournalism has also proven that various scenes of rough reality can be captured in rather aesthetic manner.
Consequentially, it’s still an ongoing debate in an art world whether photographs taken on an assignments for newspapers can be valuable enough to be framed, exhibited on the walls of common art galleries and thus considered for a fine art works.
Due to all its qualities, photojournalism has gained increasing attention and acceptance among art lovers over last few decades. Many art galleries have realised that the work of photojournalists falls within the definition of art and decided to feature gallery shows and exhibitions on this subject.
You can argue that news photography is too realistic to be art, or you can agree that realism is a form of art too. You can argue that objective recording of some situation isn’t creative process of inovating some new idea, or you can
agree that photojournalism can be as ingenious, originative and lucid as any other form of art. Often working under different dangerous circumstances, news photographers capture powerful moments through complex interplay between photographer’s eye, camera, subject, light, contrast and many other elements. It often results with an image of some realistic event blending narrative and emotional component into unique peace of art. All of this characterizes imaginative process of creation in any other art field.
Also, many of these truth-telling shots withstand the test of time. Vietnam “napalm girl” is probably one of the best examples. Over forty years later, after captured in one of the most memorable photos of the previous century, the image of this girl is an eloquent symbol and strong message against the war.
Photojournalism can affect spectators in a same way any other form of art does. News photos speak universal language, they can touch and move audience and reflex some profound ideas and messages.
This is why the photojournalism exhibits are becoming more common within the art world. And this is why even more photos should cross over from newspapers onto walls of numerous art galleries and museums.
A photography can be just– a photography. It can also be a pure peace of art. Between millions of amateurs taking snapshots of their vacations, kids and pets and fine art photographers with great reputation, there’s a whole world of commercial photographers. While earning and paying bills by wedding shootings, many of them continue to make personal collections of photos, expressing their artistic talent and unique ideas. Many of them actually wish to take their photography to a higher level.
Partial solution is to make an online profile and publish artwork on a website, but nothing beats real, classic art gallery exhibition.
Stepping out of the comfort zone of commercial photography market into capricious world of pure art can be frightening sometimes. Fine art gallery business is exactly what it says – a combination of art and business, an intersection of artistic expressions, viewers’ critiques and the ultimate cost – benefit calculations.
All the doubts are usually summed up into: “How do I even step into any decent art gallery? And what if nobody likes my work?”
The truth is that galleries usually don’t want to take financial risks and they’d rather feature something guaranteed to be sold successfully. Fortunately, there are some advices you can follow in order to make a good, professional approach and get yourself a well prepared collection of photographs. These tips lower your chances of being turned down.
Don’t be to harsh on yourself, but apply some rational self observation when evaluating your work. Be honest. You need to have something unique and meaningful to say and show. You should have an entire series of photographs centered around any subject or style that you’ve studied thoroughly enough. Produce set of photos related to one another and carefully select a final set of images that work well together. The better you tell your story with artwork, the more interested audience is going to be.
The overall color of the photos matters. So does the color of the frames. Keep in mind that frames should focus the eye on the photography, thus pick adequate color of the frame to make a contrast with a photo.
Once you’ve polished your collection of photographs, get yourself some marketing material. Show you’re a professional by creating representative portfolio, elegant and creative website, business card and an artist statement that describes your work and puts that photo collection into some context.
Choose wisely the art gallery you will contact first. There are numerous different galleries and group shows and you should get to know the market, conditions and offers before reaching out for a particular gallery. A local young gallery is a good place to start. You get to see how people will respond to your work before you spread your working field. Plus, gaining some experience in smaller galleries is a smart move before you give a shot with some more established one.
Personal approach is the best way to appeal to a gallery. Find out their submission requirements and meet their standards as precisely as you can.
Once you get their green light to exhibit your artwork, make sure your presentation is as good as your photos. Visit the facilities of the gallery and adapt your collection according to the properties of the given space. Pay attention to how people react to your art, so you can adjust your work a bit if needed further on. Be professional, kind, available and don’t push the line when setting a price. Keep in mind you’re a beginner, but trust the magic of new beginnings nevertheless.