In Photography and Representation by Roger Scruton, the author establishes the idea that the ideal photograph is not art. In the same breath, he asserts that ideal photography is not necessarily an idea that photographers should strive for, nor does it necessarily exist. Yet he bases his argument on the ideal. In reviewing his article, I will examine why he painstakingly tries to make this distinction between the ideal painting and the ideal photograph. His argument rests on the proposition that photographs can only represent causally, whereas painters create figurative works of art via intentional relationships. Scruton manages to create a strong argument, but ultimately I will decide that it is not a fair assumption to say that photographs cannot provide meaning or aesthetic value. Scruton wants to view photography as an ideal, but he quickly declares that ideal photography is a logical fiction. Why is this important then? Clearly, photography is a complex form of expression and the aim seems to be to extract its fundamental properties in the simplest possible terms. However, he states that it should be clear to the reader that the concept need not actually exist and that if he makes claims that seem "exaggerated or false", we should not be put off. To me this seems like a cop-out. It is not clear, at least to me, where exactly the connection between a fictional concept and reality lies. Scruton argues that when we are interested in photographs, we are actually interested in the actual objects that were photographed rather than in the photographs themselves. . He says this because he says that photographic representation does not exist. He says that photography relates to the subject in the sense that it is a photo...... middle of paper ...... thinks photography is an art, the individual photo can always be considered as close to an ideal photograph in the sense that it is a causal relationship. However, the medium as a whole is capable of much more than Scruton is willing to allow. I believe the clear distinction is that Scruton's argument that the causal relationship between the photograph is equivalent to perceiving the object without the photograph. This is not true, because we have found distinctions where photographs and reality can never be the same. There's no doubt that you can't see some of the subtleties of a fast-moving object with the naked eye. This brings new information to the eye. It may be a mechanical representation of how the object actually looks, but it is a unique observation of it with its own aesthetic interest. It must therefore be said that photography can be an art.