Is ‘Photoshop photography’ lesser art?

David de Souza lauds the absence of Page 3 photographers in Fine Art Through The Lens

Fine art photography is a logical development in the hierarchy of fine art. With the commodification of art, prices of painting and sculpture are stratospheric. Anyone interested in putting art on their walls with a smaller budget, would look for alternatives like photography and prints.

For this reason, the book Fine Art Through The Lens,   as an exploration and celebration of art in photography, is long overdue. Curated by a jury including Gautam Rajadhyaksha, Abhay Sardesai and Praful Patel, it is published by Inner Voice.

The weak foreword is easily overlooked by the sheer range and diversity of the subject matter, including photographers who are not glamorous enough to be on Page 3. The absence of the handful of photographers who are regular newsmakers is extremely significant.

In the ‘overture’ describing the selection process, a weird decision is revealed: only ‘pure’ in-camera images were curated, everything else was left in a heap on the editing floor.

This makes no sense. Fine art is fine art. Would you consider Caravaggio or David Hockney lesser artists for using the camera obscura or photography in their fine art? Then what of photographers who use painting or Photoshop in theirs? The notion of ‘pure’ and eugenics—the process of purifying—is suspect, at best.

Most of the photographs are beautiful, simple and straightforward, sometimes dangerously close to pretty. Some of the images are a cliché away from the usual Photographic Society of India  annual show, and many have been seen before at other photography fora. But the works of S Paul, Sham Manchekar, Rafique Sayed and Prasad Naik stand out.

If you are looking for photographic breakthroughs, you will not find it in this book. Which leads to the question, is fine art photography in India treading new ground or do we walk well-trod paths which may have been abandoned in more mature markets?

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