Hawthorn Tree..English lake district

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Who do you mean by "we"?

You and Slobodan? You and me and Slobodan?...

Hell no! I am just a lowly photographer

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Who do you mean by "we"?

You and Slobodan? You and me and Slobodan? Everyone who commented on this topic? Everyone member of this discussion forum? Everyone who has taken a photograph? Every human being?

I'd say "Every human being." But of course the quality of the artistic output varies a lot and is hard to quantify in any meaningful way.

Eric

[luxborealis]

Who do you mean by "we"?

You and Slobodan? You and me and Slobodan? Everyone who commented on this topic? Everyone member of this discussion forum? Everyone who has taken a photograph? Every human being?

Touché. Anyone can claim to be an artist, just like anyone can claim to be a good and decent person. "The proof is in the pudding": in how we choose to create our photographs (our art if one chooses to call it that) or live our lives. When someone unknown to me is moved by my work and acknowledges what I do as art then, to me, that's all the proof I need.

[Isaac]

I'd say "Every human being."

What word would you like to use for those particular human beings formerly known as artists? (If every human being is an artist, calling particular human beings artists no longer tells us anything about them.)

[Isaac]

Touché.

I didn't intend that question as a riposte, I was trying to understand what you meant. The fact that you take it to be a riposte suggests the diatribe may just be empty rhetoric.

When someone unknown to me is moved by my work and acknowledges what I do as art then, to me, that's all the proof I need.

That isn't how you concluded the diatribe (with a description that seems more like narcissist than artist):

Be yourself - if that means other people don't like what you've done, so be it. Our goal as artists is embarrassingly selfish: first and foremost, please yourself, be yourself, be true to yourself.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... The sooner photographers realize that art is about expression and start putting more of their own expression into their work, the sooner the art world will fully accept photography as more than just paint-by-number snapshots produced by a machine held by someone who thinks they are creating art...

Judging by the future tense, we are not there yet, right? Thus the art world at present does not fully accept photography as equal, right? If so, then stop using wishful thinking (i.e., possible future state of affairs) as an argument today.

And its up to us, photographers, whether the art world would accept us as equal, right? We just need to start expressing ourselves and will be there? We only need to wish it strongly enough, visualize it, send positive vibes, and it will happen? Yeah, right.

[Isaac]

We only need to wish it strongly enough, visualize it, send positive vibes, and it will happen? Yeah, right.

You're being mean.

[Isaac]

This is exactly the narrow thinking my diatribe was against - photography is just as well suited to "altering reality" as any other medium of self-expression. ... And what does believability have to do with it.

If "believability" was part of what someone was attempting to express, then necessarily "an other worldly feel" would be a failure. otoh if "an other worldly feel" was part of what someone was attempting to express...

the sooner the art world will fully accept photography as more than just paint-by-number snapshots produced by a machine held by someone who thinks they are creating art.

The art world does good business selling art that uses photography as medium; art museums have permanent collections of photography and annual shows visited by 30,000 people; and art galleries promote special exhibitions through books like The Digital Eye: Photographic Art in the Electronic Age.

'You see, the extraordinary thing about photography is that it's a truly popular medium... But this has nothing to do with the art of photography even though the same materials and the same mechanical devices are used. Thoreau said years ago, "You can't say more than you see." No matter what lens you use, no matter what the speed of the film is, no matter how you develop it, no matter how you print it, you cannot say more than you see. That's what that means, and that's the truth.'   Paul Strand, Aperture 19(1), 1974.

[luxborealis]

I think this line of discussion has diverged to the point of arguing for the sake of arguing without anything meaningful being added.

Shaun - be sure to share more of your work. I appreciate what you are doing.

[Isaac]

... arguing for the sake of arguing without anything meaningful being added.

The object of argument is to get at the truth.

You launched into a diatribe but you don't seem prepared to consider evidence that contradicts opinions you set down, or hear when those opinions are too ambiguous to add any meaning.

I dare say photography is more popular now than when Paul Strand wrote 35 years ago. I dare say popular photography still has little to do with the art of photography. I've provided you with examples of the art world's acceptance of photography, and last year we had the example of Andreas Gursky's Rhein II.

Obviously, picturesque popular photography is not what the art world accepts as the art of photography.