Art photography has a long history and its early 20th century form was called Pictorial ism although the movement did not last too long. Much later in the 20th century, art photography was accepted and today some people regard Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, John Szarkowski and Hugh Edwards as the pioneers of art photography. Most of the photographs taken during the 1970’s and the 80’s were showcased in art galleries and the genre styles comprised of natural landscapes, nudes and portraits. Aperture Foundation and the Museum of Modern Art, USA is an organization that has been on the forefront for keeping this kind of photography alive.
Since the advent of color photography there has been an immense change in the world of fine art photography as now photographers can use various color filters to bring out certain hidden characteristics in any painting. Now you can take photographic prints on photographic paper and the requirement in the 21st century is for hi-gloss wall-sized prints as opposed to its predecessor, delicate prints in thin frames.
There are many great photographers who have dedicated their life to the development of art photography by using themes. One such photographer is Anne Geddes. A well known art photographer, Anne has spent a lifetime taking pictures of babies. Most of her work has also been featured on books, calendars and greeting cards. The best place to check for some of the best art photographs is at 51 fine art photography situated in Antwerpen, Belgium. They host exhibitions of some of the famous and beautiful art photographs. The art photographers who have participated in this exhibition include Arthur Leipzig, Diane Arbus, Louis Faurer, Ted Croner, Joan Fontcuberta, Bruce Davidson, Seydou Keita, William Klein, Cornelius Augustt Azaglo, Garry Winogrand, Jean Pierre Khazem, Ronald Stoops & Inge Grognard and Nicole Tran Ba Vang.
It is not necessary to take pictures of paintings and sculptures for art photography. You can also take photographs of inspiring landscape scenes and convert them into an absolutely beautiful piece of art. There are a few essentials things that you need to know in order to become a good fine art photographer. Some of them are:
A reliable camera that can shoot in fully manual as well as fully auto focus modes
Camera Mounted Flash: This is required only if your subject is portraitures. For landscape or nature photography, you can use fill flash, which is available with most cameras today.
Film Speed: If your subject is portraitures then slower speeds of 25 to 400 is required but for actions shots you will need faster speeds of 600 and above.
Shutter Speed: It depends on what kind of a photograph you want to take. You can choose a blur motion or freeze motion. If you choose a shutter speed of 1/60th then you will get blur motion. The normal setting in a camera is 1/125th. If you want a freeze action mode then 1/500th is good enough although it can go up to 1/2000th of a second depending on the camera.
Aperture: The aperture in a camera decides the amount of light that can reach the film in the camera.
