What makes photographs different from drawings or paintings?

Answer 1

Photographs, drawings and paintings are all means of rendering an image of a scene. But they are fundamentally different media. Photographs are made by physically (chemically or digitally) capturing the light from a scene on film or a digital sensor. Photographs were originally intended to render a "true" image of a scene. Drawings are done by hand with pencil or pen and ink or chalk or other media on drawing paper. Paintings are done with water colors or oils using brushes or pallet knives on paper, board, or canvas.

On the other hand, any medium can be manipulated by almost any means. For example, photographers have the option of choosing focal length and camera position to manipulate perspective, just as the graphic artist does. Any artist in any medium can frame the picture in any manner to include or exclude anything. Graphic artists can include or exclude things in the frame as they draw or paint. Photographers have long had the ability to retouch negatives or manipulate prints, and now we have PhotoShop and other tools that allow photographers to do - anything!

There are painters and graphic artists who work hard to reproduce scenes photographically. In the 1850's a school of artists called themselves Realists. Some of their paintings are so realistic you feel that you could reach in and take something out. There was a group of photographers calling themselves Pictorialists who worked to make their photographs look "painterly." Any medium is simply a means to an end. They just get there by different routes.