Comment by joemoon
14 years ago
I understand your general thesis, but your statements about art just seem completely off.
> You can't have art unless you constrain yourself somehow.
> They could just take a photograph of a setting, and that photograph wouldn't say a thing to anyone.
While I realize that art is subjective, I'm very surprised that you would put these conditions around what you consider to be art. Especially since it seems to be a condemnation of a large subset of photography.
Just curious, but would you like to give me a couple of examples of recognized good art that isn't constrained by some rule, method, technique, or approach?
A large subset of photography isn't art. In fact, most everything people create isn't art per se—if it were, there wouldn't be good art nor bad art, just art and lots and lots of it. Spend a few hours on some photo-sharing site and see what people shoot. They're photographs, but rarely art.
But there are grades of art. Look at this search: http://goo.gl/2mLVI — a thousand sunset pictures, while maybe pretty, aren't generally art and not because it's the same sun in each picture. Most of these pictures have nothing to say. Now, some object lit by the sunset or silhouetted against it gives a lot more potential to be art. A carefully crafted study of a sunset in the form of a photograph can be art, but it requires finding certain constraints first, finding a certain angle that makes the photograph a message, and eventually conveying through the lens something that makes the viewer stop for a moment, to give an idea, to give a feeling, to give a confusion.
I'm genuinely mystified by your response. Art is an entirely subjective endeavor. You seem to think that you can decide what is and is not art. Frankly, you're not qualified for that task (read: no one is).
> A large subset of photography isn't art
> a thousand sunset pictures, while maybe pretty, aren't generally art
Seriously? Because you get to decide? Your response just seems incredibly egocentric. You can define what art means to you all day long, but you can not define what art means to everyone.
I don't think so. Photography as art has never been just pointing and shooting. You have to find the right natural lightning, or the right facial expression, or the right color composition, etc. All those restrictions make the photography an art that no anyone can achieve (at least, without extensive training and effort).
I strongly disagree that extensive training is required to create art. Art comes in many forms, and it's a quite myopic to imply that only professionals can create art.
I guess we'll just have to disagree.