The Rise of Photography

(Camera: Sony A55)

Recently, the author had a chance to interview a locally-born fine arts trader from Europe. He revealed that since the financial doldrums swept across Europe, the fine arts community has been giving a heavier weight to photography as a medium of fine arts, and a profitable one.

The reason is that both the fine arts creators and buyers are short of funds. Cost-wise, photography is reasonably affordable to both sides. Also, given the wide possibility in "tempering" with digital images, fine arts makers have greater elbowroom than in the film era to let their imagination fly. He commented that photography has never been treated on the such a same footing as other fine arts media in history.

According to him, photography in at least the filed of fine arts will increasingly lean towards the trend of storytelling. That is to say, a good quality image will be defined as the one rich in textures both technically and in substance. This, to the author, could be the same trend in the general photography community. With the ever expanding number of camera buyers who will hopefully become photographers to numb our sense with uncountable images, the ability to tell a story in an image will probably be an important factor for us to differentiate between a winning photo from the rest.

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