Aesthetic Analysis of Photography in the Context of Fine Arts With an Approach to Bourdieu's Cultural Capital Theory

Fine Art is an artistic genre that employs aesthetic traditions to define foundations of new objects. This type of art intends to express a sense of aesthetics, establish communication or encourage thinking and further aims to address aesthetic goals, rather than using it for practical purposes. Fine art photography means the creation of impossibles through personification of imaginary and fanciful objects in the form of images with the help of skills and tools (mainly Photoshop) and of course creativity. Photography is one of the most significant mediums of communication reproduced in number more than other forms of creations and as an artistic-cultural work, influences the taste and visual identity of the audiences. As an outlet of mass media, photography could thus communicate and interact with dissimilar classes of audiences. That is why in order to successfully create pieces of art using this medium; one must identify the audience and appraise their taste more than any other art discipline. Since the audiences of cultural works, as recipients and consumers, play key roles in the development and reception of an artwork, understanding their taste is fundamental for the production process. In this respect, the study of the act of photography and understanding what a photograph is provides unique prospects of applying novel approaches to entirely appreciate the rules of behavior and the individual’s experiences of such behavior. The paper at hand is an analysis of the works of realistic and interactive socialist photography with the aim of studying the impact of media on the aesthetic perception and the way of presenting art in contemporary era. It investigates the relationship between the cultural capital of the audiences and their aesthetic taste in the field of photography. The research is theoretically based on the definition of the Pierre Bourdieu's institutionalized cultural capital. This research intends to rebuild and establish the ratios of symbolic (cultural, economic, and social) capitals in different strata of contemporary Iranian society and answer the following questions:What role does the individuals’ cultural capital play in the artistic taste and selection process of the audiences of the artworks? What position does beauty hold in the process of audiences’ decision making and selection? Recording these ratios based on the accurate statistical information obtained from field studies and corroborated statistical analysis, provides the basis for conducting all-encompassing researches.Having examined the features of Fine Art as a novel art style and photography as an artistic medium, the present study seeks to make an aesthetical analysis and identify audiences’ taste and further inspect how these two art categories are associated with the cultural capital of the members of the society. To assess the visual taste of the audiences with their cultural and economic capital, a visual questionnaire, comprising of comparative questions, was prepared. The questions include 4 sample images with similar subjects yet different employment approaches. Having consulted with the relevant professors of the field in order to authenticate the research evaluation methods, the qualitative indexes for samples’ selection have been determined based on the level of genuine and folk aesthetic works. Collected from the internet, the set of photos presented have been shot by well-known local photographers in different contexts. Likewise, having evaluated the audiences’ tastes based on their cultural capital, the necessity of achieving important parameters in the field of photography from the audiences’ perspective has been examined. In this regard, questions with spectral and multiple choice responses have been set up in order to get the audiences acquainted with the topic of the Fine Art photography, encourage them to participate as a dynamic art audience, record audience expectations and opinions about the current conditions governing the production and representation of photographs. Employing a descriptive-analytical approach and desk study of library resources, the study examines the audience's approach towards the artisticmedium of photography and analyzes the features affecting the differences in comprehension of the message of the art of photography. The research findings suggest that most audiences, regardless of their diverse cultural backgrounds, select photos that fit into the criteria of genuine aesthetic as top priority. The theoretical framework provided by intellectuals in the field of social sciences, such as Bourdieu, provides an appropriate framework for examining the relationships between art producer and consumer. It is suggested that scholars apply Bourdieu's theory to other areas of studies of art in future.