snap vs. slap

I see the NPG is showing the BP Portrait Awards 2010. There's some here and a bit more here. I think I might go.

As I saw The Guardian pictures first, and which didn't carry much information, I wasn't sure whether the BP Awards had allowed photography. (I know the NPG includes photographs in its collection.) However, I see it's just for contemporary portrait painters which makes me marvel at the talent and amount of work that must go into some of these paintings. The Guardian's image of David Eichenberg's Tim II had me puzzling for a mimute until I saw on the NPG site it's an ''oil on panel''. I had wondered if he'd used one of those funny photoshop effects on the background. Of course, now I know, what was I thinking?! It's the NPG!

I do marvel at the work but I'm also ambivalent about this style of painting: a part of me wonders why not just make a photograph? But then a different part thinks photography isn't art. Not in itself. Photography is more a craft, one using much science and technology, and mainly it's use is non-expressive. But I'm not suggesting that no photograph is art or that photography can't be used as an artistic medium. I mean, photography doesn't equal art. Like a brush and paint isn't art - otherwise anyone simply painting a garden fence would be considered artistic.

So, which is better, a photograph or a photo-realistic painting? I don't know but if Tim II had turned out to be a photo I wouldn't have marveled as much.