Maybe we should ask some photographers why they call themselves photographers and not designers.
Because calling yourself a photographer increases your chances of getting laid.
In many ways a photographer is a designer; a designer of photographs. From composing the subjects in their desired location, creating the type of light that they’re looking for, to choosing the DOF and adding processing techniques. All of this is the design of the image.
Would I call a photographer a designer? No, I’d call him a photographer. Though, if there was no such title, perhaps it would be a photograph designer. A graphic designer uses graphical elements to ‘design’ an image. It’s a fine line.
This reminds me of the design vs engineering thread…
Designers design
Engineers engineer
Photographers photograph
Yes they may share some characteristics. But obviously they are clearly different.
You don’t hire a photographer to design a car
You don’t hire an engineer to take a photograph
You don’t hire a designer to engineer a car
We are not talking about job titles. In the same way a fashion designer and industrial designer and graphic designer are not all the same.
R
IMO, there are tons of different types and meanings of design. Finding a single answer of “yes” or “no” to “is photography design” is futile without 1st finding the impossible answer of “what is design”.
Sure. Why not.
Again, I see design as the purposeful creation of “things” with intent, at it’s most basic definition.
R
I agree with Yo in all this. The photograph is a tool used to capture an image, or even a design in which case it is the process taken by the photographer to adjust the lighting, and setup the subject/object that he/she is about to capture on photo. Otherwise how else will he/she be able to show his/her work.
So yes photographers can be designers, but a photograph is not a design it is the mean used to capture a design or a moment in time.
And with the same logic, this mug is not a design. It is a tool used to hold coffee.
No, iab, that is a photograph of a tool to hold coffee. That jpeg won’t hold any fluid at all.
Thank you Yo.
Show me the coffee mug in real life and I’ll point out the design to you. Show what is in the photograph in real life and I’ll point out the design to you.
The image is not the actual design. It is just the image of the design. Because you were not able to get on the plane/car/bike/ to come to me and show me the actual design/installation it was easier and economical for you to post an image of it.
A mug is bonded cermanic particles.
A photograph is inks drops or in the case of the image on screen, photons hitting your eye.
By your definition, what I am typing are not words, just images of words. With your logic, I cannot communicate with you beacuase these aren’t words.
Again, graphic design is design. A stand-alone photo can be graphic design. I posted examples.
this conversation has degraded to the drunken arguments I have with my friends. At which point my girlfriend says “get in the cab its time to go home.”
Nxakt: I believe that Subway employees are referred to as sandwich designers (or maybe its sandwich artist, but i guess the debate over whether they are artists or designers is for a different thread)
Wouldn’t call a subway employee a designer since all they do is assemble… 
They do it very well though
Anyway, its still not clear to me whether photography is design or not. But the more I think about the definition of design it becomes a really broad term. First off I might have been quit narrow minded about the term designer, when one says he’s a designer first thing comes up in my head is a concept/product/graphic/fashion designer (or anything related to these), jobs mainly inside the creative sector. That’s not so strange I think because this board is a design board, but I believe there are mainly product designers on this board. So it seems globally accepted that the term design is related to this.
But after the discussions here I even see a writer as a designer, or a planner. And yes a photographer also creates ‘things’ with an intent. In that case the photograph doesn’t even have to be part of a graphical design.
If I look at things this way, then yeah I can call a lot of people designers…
Has? This whole thread is a drunken arguement.
But if you haven’t noticed, I am a firm believer in contention. I want to see and hear other perspectives. I expect that from other designers. Getting a harumph from a yes man is worthless. You’ll turn into this,
I agree with nxakt:
Design is intent.
Composing a scene in a viewfinder with the intent to have a resulting 2D image, is design.
So, sometimes photography is not design, and sometimes it is. Sometimes I design my photographs, and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes it takes me a second, and sometimes it takes me an hour. Just like graphic design. Just like industrial design. I would call this photo of mine a design, and I fully intended it to be a design when I composed it and captured it.
I think you all scared the OP away. I was wondering what the OP’s thoughts were that led to the question in the first place.
As a photographer, who is greatly inspired and influenced by design - I say that photography can be design. If we look at the photograph as documentation then yes, its difficult for it to be experienced as design.
If we look at the photograph as more than a documentation of something that is there already happening, and see it as something made from an original idea of form - as with someone like Man Ray http://www.google.com/search?q=man+ray&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1104&bih=728 you can experience a very different relationship with an image than say with someone like Henri Cartier-Bresson. Henri Cartier-Bresson - Wikipedia Of course these are both photographers long gone , but whose approach represents the opposite end of the spectrum… that of taking a photography vs. that of making a photograph.
Then of course when you get into fashion you often get the combination of the two, as seen with much of Avedon’s older work from the Modernist period.
Presently we are in an era of ‘real’ or ‘lifestyle’ or ‘heritage’ photography - its SEEMS more real by use of tone, and the recreation of human emotion and use of what is familiar and ‘natural’. Its beautiful - alas, it is as far from natural as say - an image as set up as Man Ray’s were. The movement is not supporting new ways of seeing that I feel great makers are dedicated to. Its more popular right now to create work that feels nostalgic, or in the case of object design, shows the object in a commercial product shot. I feel its along the lines of Post-Modernism in architecture.
But out there are still many people shooting, both conceptually and commercially, hoping to show new visions or at least a new twist on their vision. This is where design often fits in with photography. In these cases, the camera is the tool - not the image. The makers are showing their ideas of space and form. The image is a result of using what is inside the image as a tool. To suggest that photography cannot be design would also suggest there is no such thing as web design and feels a little simplified, sticking to the idea of a photograph as something taken rather than something made; while both clearly exist. Looking at web design in this way makes the monitor and the internet tools, and everything within them only serve the purpose of being useful - but we know with all the web designers, and web artists, out there, this is not true.
I love Susan Sontag’s book of course, but again - the world of photography in the digital era has altered with such speed since the time of its writing, that looking at photography via the eyes and theory of that one book is not up-to-date anymore - though important to know of for deep understanding of the history of photography and the human relationship to it. On top of that social relationships between people have changed so much since that era as well - that this changes our reactions to the images we see. In other words, things just aren’t what they used to be.
Tools for a designed photograph include the body, light, prop, form, space and framing - just a few. But the idea is of course the strongest tool of any. I enjoyed the SONY example above, for something commercial.
Just one opinion, from a photographer who often feels like photography today is misunderstood, by designers and the general public alike. A photograph not only a tool, or a document. There are so many kinds of photography now its absolutely inaccurate to group them into the all-encompassing label of - ‘a photo’. Its important to identify the KIND of photo you are looking at, then define it from there.
Perhaps we should write a new book?
Christine Taylor