The Camera
&The Canvas
Dean Huggins
P
hotography and art; sometimes we photographers feel a little left out of the art community. After all we don’t use paintbrushes, canvas, and other
appurtenances that ‘regular artists’ use in their quest
to express themselves. We don’t spend hundreds of
hours making a single piece of art. Artists that paint
have been around for thousands of years and have
had much time to ply their trade and perfect the art of
landscape, portrait, still life, and other genres. Some
see a great discrepancy between the camera and canvas, as if it takes no talent or ability to make a photograph.
Enter the modern age. The invention of the camera
has made such a momentous impact on world society
that it is hard to find a place to begin telling the complete story and even more so the future of photography and its role in our daily lives.
When we consider the huge array of uses for the
camera we may not be able to say that we will ever see
the end of its applications. I ponder the uses of photography and I can almost say with a certainty that
photographs have a value in our world that the painted canvas can never attain to. We often forget the
uses that we find. One to consider is X-rays, which
we must agree are invaluable to us in certain health
situations like broken bones and tooth conditions
among many. We also need to consider the science
end of photography, such as shots of the moon and
earth from space, the amazing images from the Hubble telescope, Google maps which allow us to see
our neighbor’s back yards and forensic photography.
There is also the natural outgrowth of photography
into the movie industry, which has taken the world
by storm, the reproduction of painted art in digital
format, to name just a few of its many uses. No one
can deny that photography has changed the way we
entertain others, prosecute in court, or record and
grow data.
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