A Beginner's Guide To Fine Art Photography

Fine art photography offers the freedom to express ourselves in new and creative ways. If you have not already tried it, you might want to try your hand at it to get creative and expressive. You can look forward to creating some thought-provoking and captivating images that are bound to draw people to your work. In this beginner’s guide, we put together several insights that you can explore to take your work to greater heights.

What is Fine Art Photography?

There is no true definition of fine art photography that everyone will agree with. For starters, there is usually a fine line between commercial and fine art photography. There are also conflicting definitions on how fine art photography needs to be done that makes it even tougher to narrow down to what truly constitutes an image of fine art.

Starts with a Vision

One thing that sets fine art photography apart from commercial or photojournalism is that fine art photography is rather symbolic instead of always being resentational. Fine art photography often involves bringing an emotion, vision, or a state of mind to life through photos. It also involves the creation of something that used to live inside of your mind as opposed to just capturing what you view in an artistic manner. Fine art photography is a way to express your thoughts and how you perceive the world to share with people. This means that you should already have a concept in mind when preparing a fine art photoshoot. A starting point is important to be established whether it is a detailed plan or just a vague idea.

Beauty and Meaning

As opposed to other types of photography, another definition of fine art photography is that it is meant to be judged solely for its meaningfulness and beauty. These two things can be subjective so it can break the usual rules of photography and is not restricted by practical considerations. For example, a fine art photo can be totally out of focus which may not be a good thing for other forms of photography. However, it can mean something like an abstract in fine art photography. At the end of the day, the objective is not to demonstrate your technical skills but instead it encourages you to express an emotion, idea, or a message.

Careful Creation

Fine art photos are not candid shots. Every fine art photo involves extensive planning and tweaking. Between the details, composition, and meaning, fine art photos are created as carefully as one would paint a picture. Hence, you can say that fine art photography can be complicated. However, at the end of the day, fine art photography is truly how you visualize it to be.

Fine Art Photography Tips

• Find Inspiration - Figure out your vision, message, or emotion that you wish to convey to lead you to the right direction.
• Clear Head - Fine art photography topics can be overwhelming. Find the angle that interests you by first clearing your head.

Look at Other Work - Refer to the work of other photographers. Be inspired but be sure not to copy exactly their style.