Photographs as art

I've been reading a book about entering photos in contests. While it is useful for that topic, it has increased my awareness of the difference between pictures that can win contests and those that are "wall-hangers", genuinely artistically interesting. (For the moment I'm setting entirely aside the category of photos that are "newsworthy".)

Some years ago I was browsing through a very large rental/sale art gallery, considering art I might want to own. The manager of the gallery gave me a piece of advice that was excellent at the time, but over the years has come to carry a deeper meaning. He said that I should not buy a picture that I found immediately attractive or interesting; those pictures, he said, don't always "wear well". He strongly suggested that I rent a picture I was considering purchasing, hang it in a prominent place in my house, and keep it for one or more months. His final comment was that the most satisfactory pictures were not necessarily those that grabbed you, but those that somehow got your interest and increased it over time.

It has been said that an "art" photograph takes an everyday object or view and makes us see, as if for the first time, how interesting/beautiful it is. Changing the scale to a larger size, as in Georgia O'Keefe's paintings, is an effective way to accomplish this. Or a dozen other "darkroom tricks" such as changing the color, can have the same effect. I recently saw a painting of a pear, easily 4 feet tall, which was quite good. Every subtle gradation of color and shape were brought out. I stayed interested in that painting for several days, but it falls short of the ideal in that it failed to draw me into it more deeply over time.

That really sums up my thoughts about photos as genuine art. They have to be more than pretty, more than interest grabbers. Somehow they must pull you deeper into the image and sustain your interest. Now, however, we get into the question of what it is that constitutes real art. Of course, there's no answer to that other than the cliche about knowing what we like. We want to make people like our photos, but more than that, we want their interest to continue and deepen. Just being able to win a contest isn't even in the ball park.

I would welcome any comments on this topic.