but its just a photo....!

A few days back I was meeting a potential customer pitching for a sale and going through my flow when he suddenly interrupted,  "Wait!" he exclaimed "...but this is just a photograph! Aren't you glorifying by calling it Art?" he challenged me. 

Well this kind of  feedback is nothing new given my line of business. But I realised that we need to educate ourselves to appreciate art for what is expressed rather than the medium it is expressed in. 

So what is Art?  Art very simply put is a human innovation that creates beautiful sensory perceptions in a manner evoking emotions. While the intent of this post is not to discuss about the greatest art form, its sole purpose is to highlight the unique aspect about the Art form we believe in, PHOTOGRAPHY.

And what's so unique about Photography, that we adore it so passionately?

It's the power of the moment: We all agree that photography is all about freezing the moment and this makes it very special. In other forms of Art the artist can "recreate" her magic again and again, a photographer on the other hand can never recreate her image ever again, no matter how hard she tries. And if the photographer is using photography to express herself through the fleetingness of a moment, we need to comprehend the effort, planning and luck that goes behind the action of tripping the shutter and expressing through that special moment. If you consider this and the moment which will never present itself again, photography as an art form suddenly becomes priceless and very unique. 

Now if we agree that this is a special feature of photographic fineart which no other art form can emulate, then why is it that we are so condescending when considering Photography as a valid visual art form? I think that deserves another post for elaboration. 

So what happened to my meeting with the prospective customer? Well I hope he reads this...

So what do you think about Photography? Is there any other art form that cannot be replicated? Would like to hear you out.