We've had several genres (Portraiture - https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/forums/threads/portraiture.140635/, Still Life - https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/forums/threads/still-life.140633/, Street - https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/forums/threads/street-photography.140641/, Documentary - https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/forums/threads/documentary-reportage.140766/) so I thought I'd start some more.

I wanted a better term, one that @RovingMike often uses, but couldn't remember so I've gone with Graphic Art. Images which some might call Fine Art, but which basically turn something into a study of shapes and lines and colours.

A lot of my photographs become this, and there's a style of street photography which is this, but a lot of @Zou's images fall in this category too without being street.

Damp Basement by Tony Evans, on Flickr

Hard on the Eyes by Tony Evans, on Flickr

W by Tony Evans, on Flickr

A Wall of Three Thirds by Tony Evans, on Flickr

Something Different by Tony Evans, on Flickr

Red Black Red Black by Tony Evans, on Flickr

Testing the Temperature by Tony Evans, on Flickr

Verticals by Tony Evans, on Flickr

I love graphic / geometric images, taking the real world and turning them in to something pleasing to the eye is for me one of the deep pleasures of my photography.

Sometimes that involves people, other-times just a wall with some paint on it.

 

One of my favourite genres too. Obviously a few I have posted in the comp threads recently fit into this category.

 

Just a few of mine that spring to mind. I do put people in them but most is things on walls, patterns of light or just odd things that catch the eye etc.


Would you class this as graphic art?

Woman in The Saatchi by Nigel G, on Flickr

Then the rizzla packet, that is just noticeable in the above shot.

rizzla by Nigel G, on Flickr

And from the same set. I was obviously going through a white phase. A different type of graphic image than you gave examples of, but I would put it into the same category.

reflecting on the art by Nigel G, on Flickr

 

I think there's a definite graphic element in them, yes. They work because of the shapes.

 

I also reckon that a lot of the images I take are just quick snaps with my iPhone. Unless I am specifically going out to take photo's I do not carry a camera and a lot of graphic type of images are things I just happen to see, if that makes sense.

 

I remember that one. Loved it.

 

I try to have a visual art element to much of what I do. But I tend to do it more as a styling to something else, rather than art for art's sake.

Just doing lectures at the moment on my Transport signage and Iconography project and that throws up some examples:

_C020311 by Mike Longhurst, on Flickr

_C040354 by Mike Longhurst, on Flickr

_C281015 by Mike Longhurst, on Flickr

PC020277 by Mike Longhurst, on Flickr

PC020274 by Mike Longhurst, on Flickr

 

Visual art, that's the phrase I was seeking.

 

Ah, but whilst visual art and graphic art may overlap there's a distinction surely.

Have a look at this photographer and let me know which you think she is (or indeed, both): Sinziana Velicescu.

 

More visual art with a documentary purpose:

Donut Time 2 by Mike Longhurst, on Flickr

P3281325 by Mike Longhurst, on Flickr

P1170176 by Mike Longhurst, on Flickr

 

that's the bunfight we're here to have surely

 

Lovely, yes, visual art, sometimes making graphic art out of someone else's art, which is a skill in itself.

 

Well the RPS turned that discussion into a bit of a nonsense when they lumped it all into their pretentiously titled "Fine Art" category.

 

I used to want to be a photojournalist, covering Africa or Asia. These days my photography goals are very different; one is to be a fraction as good as she is at architecture/form/graphic stuff.

 

Which I always read as in, well, it's fine enough...

 

But not great...

Had to truncate as formatting wouldn't let me take off italics.