I can’t believe that I am even writing this. In many ways there is no reason to. Its a pointless argument and a worthless discussion. However, I will give it a go. In my opinion the word ‘art’ is used too often by photographers as a subjective description based on little more than a need to put a label on work. Perhaps to raise the mundane and the everyday to a level of appreciation that it doesn’t deserve. Tell me if I’m right! If you feel the need to refer to your photography as art, tell me why? And give me a solid reasoned answer. I promise I will respond if you do. Insults will be ignored.

I see photographers working in many areas of photographic practice referring to their work as ‘their art’ or that they are ‘creating art’ and that includes primarily wedding, portrait, landscape, still-life, wildlife and street photographers. Insterestingly, I rarely hear professional commissioned photographers describing their photographs in this way. Photographers who work for magazines and medium to large brands. Maybe they don’t feel the need!

I don’t have a problem with those engaged with contemporary art practice referring to their work as art. Why should I? Those working with photography within the rich tradition of experimentation with lens based media are working as artists within the art world. You may not like, understand or appreciate this kind of work and I will admit that I struggle with it sometimes but at least I can recognise it as an area of artistic practice. That is not that same with a portrait of a guest at a wedding.

I give that as an example as a wedding photographer gave it to me. Here is the difference. That photographer was at a wedding providing a service, the documentation of an event. He was not there to create art but to do his best for his clients. If he got some successful images in addition to their requirements then that is great. Is it possible to create accidental art? I guess it is but what is art? Do we have a clearly defined definition?

The photographer Helmut Newton worked throughout his long career primarily for magazines. Although he did also take on private commissions. His work today makes big money in art galleries and at auction. It’s sold to hang on walls and exist in expensive collections. He said this, “Art is a dirty word in photography.” Oscar Wilde said “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” I think I am more with Oscar than Helmut on this but I can understand the German photographers point. Does the wedding photographer supply pictures of people as they really are? If not does he get paid? Charles Bukowski said that “The way to create art is to burn and destroy ordinary concepts and to substitute them with new truths that run down from the top of the head and out of the heart.” I dont think the wedding photographer who claims his work is art would agree with Bukowski’s take, but I think I would. I don’t think he would meet Wilde’s definition of what makes an artist either.

Art is not pretty pictures, chocolate box compositions to hang inoffensively on a wall to match or compliment a room’s decor. Or maybe it is, maybe that is bad art or non-art. It is not soft focus photographs of misty water, sunsets or anything else that we have seen before on Instagram, Threads or anywhere else where such imagery proliferates or cultivated. Art should be dangerous, challenging, personal, adventurous, questioning, thought provoking, at least that’s what I was taught at art school. The sculptor, performance artist and painter Bruce McLean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_McLean) taught me to draw and his constant refrain remains in my head to this day. “Do the work!” he would say in his thick Glaswegian accent. Doing the work was important, not what we called the work.

That’s my viewpoint and contribution to a pointless discussion with no end or answer in which I have asked more questions than provided answers. I know that its’ subjective but at least it is based in some logic. I probably shouldn’t be concerned what people think their photography is or isn’t it’s nothing to do with me! But just as when people use the word ‘arty’ to describe some form of creativity the hairs on the back of my next go up when the word ‘art’ is applied to something inappropriately. Its probably because I care about true art. When I was at art school a friend asked me a question. He said this. “What’s the differance between school and art school.” I don’t know I replied. “At art school everyone wants to understand and make art” he stated and he was right. Maybe it would be useful for others to undertake the same journey of exploration before they adopt the role of the artist and apply the word art to their photographs. Just a suggestion…

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8 magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

Scott’s book is Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, Orphans Publishing, is on sale now wherever you buy your books.

©Grant Scott 2025