Making art, creating art, my art, your art! None of these proclamations mean anything to me in relation to photography. I say this as someone who has spent many years studying art at art school where I trained as a painter, printer and designer. Reading about artists, meeting artists, attending museums and exhibitions full of art as well as being a practicing professional photographer for over twenty-five years. I have a problem with the word ‘arty’ but not with the word art, I just have an issue with how it is corrupted when it comes to photography. This is an opinion that is guaranteed to anger those involved in its corruption. So, let’s get started…

Watching an interview with the actor Helena Bonham Carter recently a phrase she used stuck with me. She said this, “If you stumble, make it part of the dance.” This was advice she had been given and had never forgotten as an actor. To me it summed up an important aspect of all creativity, the willingness to accept failure as being important to the process of creating art. Intention is one thing, outcome is another.

The big problem for me is the definition based on that intention. What is ‘art’? Are your photographs ‘art’ because you say they are? Is that enough to warrant that label? I don’t think so. Some photographers tell me that their work is ‘art’ because it is their personal expression using the medium. To me that does not make it art, it makes it personal work; a valid description of images created outside of a paid commission but not ‘art’. Others have told me that their work is ‘art’ because it’s based on framing and that it is only ‘art’ if it is printed! More validations that make no sense. I have heard many more.

I often meet people who think that I hate analogue photography. How can I? I worked as a professional photographer, won awards and exhibited work all with analogue created images. I don’t hate analogue it’s just that I can’t accept uninformed headline shouters telling me that it is the future, that it is the only real photography and that it is essential for all photographers to learn. It is none of these. It is a choice that some photographers choose as an appropriate process for their practice and intention. If they can afford to use it, have the facilities to work with it and the experience to master it then that is all good with me. Interestingly many of the photographers who do choose this medium also refer to themselves as artists. Therefore their work must be ‘art’? Right?

Well, if that is the case where does that leave the digital artists who never print their work? Can they be artists? Can their work be ‘art’? Not according to some it seems. This is of course ridiculous; the process does not define whether ‘art’ is ‘art’. But then what does? The truth is that no one seems to agree and that is the problem. There is no one confirmed definition outside of a dictionary and that is invariably the basis of a weak argument. That is why so many photographers get angry when the description of their photographs as ‘art’ is questioned and challenged.

I have to be honest and say that I have no idea why so many photographers want to be described as artists and their work as ‘art’. What is wrong with photographer and photography? To me it’s more accurate and perfectly serviceable. Perhaps it is due to a desire to elevate the work. To make it seem more important, more serious and potentially more valuable. If so I have to question the quality of the work. Work that is all of these elements should not need a label to make it something it is not.

Work that exists within galleries and auctions (the recognised natural homes for the art market) comes from many contexts including magazines and newspapers. None of this work was created as ‘art’ and yet it finds itself in the art world and potentially hanging on a buyers wall nicely framed. Is that what ‘art’ in photography is? Something that hangs on the wall in a frame.

The moment photographs enter the art market because they could make money for someone they are instantly described as ‘art’ by those selling them. I know I worked at Sotheby’s! ‘Art’ is currency in this arena. The most commercial environment you could imagine for the photograph. So, is ‘art’ photography commercial photography? The artist will say no, I say yes. All photography is commercial if a commercial transaction takes place during its lifetime. Not the creator’s but the artefacts. That may be a print, a book, or through publication. All outcomes that exist outside of a traditional understanding of commercial photography.

You may not agree with me on this. It may make you angry and lead you to attack the suggestions I have made. But before you do I ask you to take a moment, take a breath and consider if you can defend your position with objective facts rather than emotional subjective opinion. I will listen to the former. Not to the latter. In the meantime I’ll continue making photographs as a photographer and be happy with that.

Image: Herbert Bayer Lonely Metropolitan

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), Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012) and Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories (Orphans Publishing 2024). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

© Grant Scott 2025