Phenomenon of religion and photographic approaches

Religion is a very important concept in photography. The objective of thisdissertation is to look into the concept of religion in photography in terms of both itshistorical and modern reflections, and to study, in three chapters, the opportunities itoffers to the art of photography and how these opportunities are put to use in the artof photography. The aesthetic structure and the visual character of religion isstudied in the first chapter which carries the topic ?Religion and Artistic Expression?.Concepts such as ?aesthetics?, ?symbol? and ?iconography? are defined and thedivine aspects of beauty are emphasized. As an addition, the symbols seen in thethree major monotheistic religions and the interpretations of these symbols areexplained, the discussions about the illustration of religions are mentioned, thetradition of iconography is described and their contributions to artistic creativity areunderlined. In the second chapter titled ?The Concept of Religion and the Evolutionof Modern Photographic Expression? the photographers who concentrated onreligious themes during the first hundred years of the history of photography areclassified and are described together with the development of photography. Theobjective is to determine the line of development and modification of the theme ofreligion in photography in this course of time. In the last chapter of this dissertationthe works of present day groups Pierre and Gilles and AES, and photographersAndres Serrano and Abbas who concentrate on the concept of religion and whorepresent different photographic traditions are studied. The objective of this chapteris put forward the connection of these artists and their works with the three majormonotheistic religions, thus to question the role of religion in postmodern creativity.In conclusion, this study will have presented, with examples, the importance of thethree major monotheistic religions in the art of photography.