Fine-art photography

[2] Successful attempts to make fine art photography can be traced to Victorian era practitioners such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, and Oscar Gustave Rejlander and others.

S. D. Jouhar said, when he formed the Photographic Fine Art Association at that time: "At the moment, photography is not generally recognized as anything more than a craft.

[This quote needs a citation] Until the late 1970s several genres predominated, such as nudes, portraits, and natural landscapes (exemplified by Ansel Adams).

This is because books usually have high production values, a short print run, and their limited market means they are almost never reprinted.

There is now a thriving collectors' market for which the most sought-after art photographers will produce high quality archival prints in strictly limited editions.

Attempts by online art retailers to sell fine photography to the general public alongside prints of paintings have had mixed results, with strong sales coming only from the traditional major photographers such as Ansel Adams.

In addition to the "digital movement" towards manipulation, filtering, or resolution changes, some fine artists deliberately seek a "naturalistic", including "natural lighting" as a value in itself.

Prints were usually simply pasted onto blockboard or plywood, or given a white border in the darkroom and then pinned at the corners onto display boards.

Fine art photography is created primarily as an expression of the artist's vision, but as a byproduct it has also been important in advancing certain causes.

While his primary focus was on photography as art, some of his work raised public awareness of the beauty of the Sierra Nevada and helped to build political support for their protection.

Such photography has also had effects in the area of censorship law and free expression, due to its concern with the nude body.

[17] By 1987, "pictures that were taken on assignments for magazines and newspapers now regularly reappear[ed] – in frames – on the walls of museums and galleries".