Art versus journalism

This is one of those never-ending debates in photography. Should photography be considered art or journalistic documentary? Can it be both? Can a person practice both? I typically consider myself more of an artist. I don’t let reality hold me back. I love to create. I work to get what I consider the best starting point and then do my editing. This often involves bracketing shots, working exposure, composition, focus points, and depth of field. For me, it is all about the art with an occasional documentary look.

Even photos I take and share that look more like documentary style are altered. My reality is often much different than others. I work to re-create how a scene or subject looked in my mind, disregarding distractions such as leaves or branches that are “out of place” to my eye.

This mindset even applies to photographing people. I look for dramatic lighting but I am not beyond making the light more dramatic in my post-processing.

For me, it is about vision and emotion rather than merely recording a scene.