Beyond the Single Picture: Aesthetic Experiences With Photography Series in an Exhibition Context

Photography is everywhere in our current society, yet we still do not have a good scientific grasp on our aesthetic responses to photography. High quality contemporary artistic photographs have been underrepresented in the scientific literature of empirical aesthetics, despite their obvious relevance to the topic. Furthermore, photography is a medium that often works in coherent series of photographs with a specific visual, documentary, or artistic message, whereas previous studies mainly focused on single photographs. We examined visitors' aesthetic experiences with artistic photography series in an exhibition context. In general, visitors responded positively to the photography series in the exhibition and felt moved by them. There were differences between series in whether visitors felt the need to read additional context information and to which photograph(s) the majority of visitors' attention went. Visual inspection of the differences in average beauty and interest ratings between different series showed that aesthetic experiences could not be explained by straightforward photographic visual features but rather depended on other aesthetic qualities. Both beauty and interest related to feeling moved by the series, but for beauty the quality of the photographs seemed to matter, whereas for interest originality, meaningfulness, and coherence played a larger role. Experts and novices differed slightly in the specific evaluations that led to beauty versus interest ratings. Overall, the study highlights that our aesthetic experiences with photographs can be much more interesting, beautiful, moving, and meaningful than how it is currently reflected in the empirical aesthetics literature.