Philosophy of Aesthetics and Beauty in Photography

What I think we are striving towards as photographers and visual artists is this:

Create images [art works] which are beautiful.

Now, how do we do this?

What is “beauty”?

First and foremost, how do we define “beauty”?

My thought:

The apex beauty is the human being.

Which means, everything we create and design uses the human being [human body] as the ultimate judge of beauty. When we think of car design, fashion, objects, vases, architecture — we are essentially modeling our ideal of beauty after the human body.

For example, the muscular proportions of a strong man. Or the sensuous curves of a beautiful woman [sexual design].

Is nature overrated?

I think we often have the wrong idea that nature is the ultimate beauty. I think this is wrong.

This is my theory:

I think we feel “beautiful feelings” of power and domination OVER nature when we witness it.

When we look at beautiful nature, we feel superiority over nature [the initial purpose of science was to tame nature to make nature our slave]. And nature is our slave now! We build gardens that we can control. We create artificial vistas and landscapes to please us. Nature is human-kinds triumphant victory

When we build beautiful gardens and landscapes, it is a signal of our triumphant victory over the wild, untamed, an ‘scary’ nature [consider in the past, man was afraid of the dark, forests, and the woods].

Why make beautiful images?

Why make beautiful images? My thought:

Making beautiful images is a triumphant signal of your personal gratitude and deification of life and being alive!

Furthermore, when we look at beautiful photos and images, we feel stronger, more confident, more optimistic, and more joyful about life! Beautiful images give us solid and unwavering truth in the future!