Is photography art? PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS FOR NEWCOMERS-Major Di

[ . . . ]

Why not? It's the reality that had the appeal in the first place, isn't it?

What's wrong with simply recording that (to the best of one's technical ability), for sharing with others or just for future review and refreshed appreciation?

Take 3-D pictures, then. Bring back the Realist format, or better yet that old European 24 x 30 format. Or use a slide bar.

There are differences other than between flat and stereo, of course. There's the ambience of the original setting, which probably no single photograph can ever reproduce, though a series may.

Why? Why should the viewer care how the photographer reacted to the scene?
Are not the viewer's reactions his own, and the only ones valid to him?

When I see a photo of, say, Bill Clinton or George Bush, what do I care what the photographer felt about the subject? The SELECTION of one photo or another will probably give me a strong clue, but still, why should I care?

The central (if not sole) purpose of that idea seems to be to transmogrify the photographer from technician to "artist." Why bother? What's wrong with being a fine technician? Why is it that some pushers of shutter releases feel it so important to declare themselves "artists"?

The artist creates his art through his skill with materials he works with his hands. His subject may exist in the real world in front of him, or only in his imagination. That's art.

The photographer only records what is in front of his lens. That's not art, unless his manipulation of the image rises to some extraordinary level.

Both cases imply the appreciation of subjects that are meaningful in some way, often but not necessarily beautiful to look at. But appreciation of the meaningful and/or beautiful is not art; or if it is, then everyone who enjoys looking at any art is himself an "artist." Words like "art" and
"artist" then become meaningless.

The photographer's contribution to the thing is mainly selection of viewpoint, and sometimes other technical details such as lighting and angle of view. The spectator in a gallery does essentially the same thing, except with little if any control over details such as lighting.

Is technically skillful recording an art? Some secretaries take much better minutes at meetings than others do. Does that make them "artists"?

On the other hand, not very long ago I saw on TV the tour of a New York art-collecting couple's apartment, which including what appeared to be a length of clothesline about a foot long tacked to the wall through its center. "Worth seven thousand dollars," they said with a perfectly straight face. (Because the fellow who'd tacked it there was a famous "artist" of course.)

I submit that that makes the selling price of "art," and where sold or to whom, not an enormously important gauge of the art's real worth, or the artist's.

(Of course, it may be that I am just not sufficiently knowledgeable about fine art to appreciate the "technical skill" or "radical vision" that went into that "creative act." Perhaps that tacker of clotheslines was communicating something wonderful, something of really, really deep significance and I was just too stupid to get it. Eh?)

I believe Fancis Miniter's point is largel correct. Art, per se, is largely defined by historians and the marketplace of ideas - that is, discourse regarding the work elevates it to the status of the Regarded
Thing Itself. What the author intended is as likely to be discarded as it is to be kept. This is not to say that this is the way things should be, but it is the way they are.

Agendas, for example femiminsm, exploit compelling and powerful art to popularize their cause and elevate it to the kind of discourse enjoyed by the 'Art' world as you note below.

There's the difference. No single =SNAP SHOT= will capture the ambience of the original setting but a good =PHOTOGRAPH= will. That's the difference between simply capturing what is in front of the camera in auto mode with a
"great camera" and a good photographer taking a great photograph.

Nothing is wrong with it. It is all a matter of what you are trying to do.

Take something as mundane as a kid's birthday party. Some photographers take snapshots of the kid with his presents that are boring as hell.
Others take shots with wonderful composition, and fleeting expressions on the kid's face. Both show reality. But one is mundane, while the other is interesting.

Because he is an artist, with a unique vision. I said in another part of this thread that the vision is very important. In my example above, the mundane snapshot photographer has no vision. He looks, but does not see.
The other photographer sees more/better, and can allow others to see it too.

Not if he learns something, or notices something about reality that he would otherwise overlook.

There's nothing wrong with being a technician. For example, Realtors need pictures of the houses they have for sale. A good technician is what is needed.

Other photographers might be able to take pictures of the same house that would not work well for the purpose of selling the house, but might cause an emotional reaction in the viewer. They would be artists if they can do that.

IMO, great art causes a reaction in the viewer, and the worst art is that which is met with indifference.

A great photographer can see things in a way that you might totally overlook. I wonder if you would consider Michaelangelo's David to be "Not
Art" because it is merely a technically accurate transliteration of flesh into stone?

No, it makes them skilled technicians. But if they could reveal aspects of the meeting that went over the heads of most mundane viewers, then maybe they would be artists. Historical novelists try to do exactly that.
One could write a history of the civil war, with facts and figures, or one could make the reader understand the emotional impact of the war on a family. A photographer could make the same choice. It is the difference between a satelite photo of a gun emplacement and an emotionally riveting shot of a soldier holding his dead buddy.

Not every collector has good taste, and not every piece of art holds its value.

Most art has an intrinsic value of nearly zero. It is supply and demand.
It is difficult to accept any notion of "real worth" apart from market price. If you mean intrinsic value, then it would mean that every crappy sculpture made from a block of marble has a "real worth" greater than a masterful oil painting.

Maybe, but I doubt it. You might be interested to look at the work of
Marcel Duchamp.

As far as I'm concerned, art is art whether it's successful or not. I have seen some hideously bad paintings, but they were still art.

People who paint (or whatever) don't necessarily or even usually do so to convey their thoughts and feelings, in my experience. I don't know where the notion came from that THAT is some usual or expected function of art. Art doesn't have to MEAN anything.

A somewhat relevant story:

My painting instructor at art school many decades ago was a non-objective painter. That's all he ever did, non-objective paintings. (These are often incorrectly called "abstract" paintings.) A non-objective painting by definition does not represent anything, not anything at all.

He was at that time a fairly important painter, a National Academy prizewinner etc., and had a one-man show. When he put his paintings up in the show, the gallery, not surprisingly, required each one to have a title.
He said "All right, call this Number One and this Number Two, and so on."
This the gallery would not permit--they had to be "real titles." Since his paintings were not OF anything, this presented him with a dilemma. So what he did was to invent the most fanciful titles he could think of, which of course had nothing whatever to do with his paintings but satisfied the gallery requirement. One for example he called "Two Thistles in a Stream in
February."

Imagine his dismay when during the show, as he slipped around the spectators to overhear their comments (a usual practice for exhibitors), he came behind two ladies oohing and ahing over the painting and heard one saying to the other, "Doesn't that JUST PERFECTLY capture the VERY ESSENCE of two thistles in a stream in February?!"

If he works as one, sure. Either a very poor one or extremely unfortunate in his audience.

Rubbish. You keep talking about photographers merely pushing a button,

Yes. I'm get to get across the point that creativity or art are not binary qualities. One work of art may be more or less creative than another work, without one invalidating the 'artfulness' of the other.
You keep on making claims that expressing oneself in certain media preclude any possibility of the result being art. I obviously disagree.

Which proves nothing. I've created art on a photocopier myself. The fact that lots of people use a particular medium to produce boring crap in no way proves that it's impossible to produce art with it.

You can claim that all you want, but it doen't make it true. There are many art forms that are far more constrained than photography. Take
Haiku poetry for example - the constraints on a genuine Haiku are ridiculously tight, but only an clod would claim that a Haiku poem can't be art.

Ah. Interesting. So you believe that if one poses a subject, that adds art to the final image? How about putting a filter on the lens? How about lighting the subject with unusual colours?

No, because any creative act requires selection from an infinity of options. 'Selection' is inherent to the creative process, otherwise all music would be white noise,

When you say "purely for information" you imply that must be something like looking at a map, instead of some ostensibly higher purpose. People look at photographs for all sorts of reasons, but information is what photos contain. The type and arrangement of that information may make it more or less appealing, thought provoking, "touch something within them" or whatever. In any case the photographer does not (except in the extraordinary cases previously noted) create anything. He selects. It is on his ability to select well that the photograph depends for its value.

What the viewer is reacting to is the subject, the photographer's selection and the choices he's made. Do these things reflect "the vision embodied in that work"? Of course, in the sense that the photographer decided "THIS is important, and to convey this important thing it is best photographed SO."
Making a photograph formalizes the vision, or condenses it if you like.

Again there is the parallel of the accomplished secretary who takes excellent notes at meetings.

Add some elephant dung or urine and they might hang that pair of socks in a
Brooklyn art museum.

Don't you see that that's really the SAME question?

What we have here is nothing to do with art, it's to do with people wanting to be regarded as "artists."

I don't know. I can't tell from the image itself what was done to produce it.

Sarcasm noted, but no one said it "is so very simple." Technicians often do many things that are far from simple.

You're arguing against yourself here. I'm saying that the SPECTATOR makes these choices when he walks into a gallery, not the "they" in your hypothetical case.

Because the painter is creating his work with his hands, not recording it with a machine. He is neither a mere spectator nor a technician (skilled or otherwise) with a recording device.

There is indeed good art as opposed to crappy art, but tacking a length of clothesline to a wall is not something I recognize as art either good or crappy. It's just a silly thing to do. It is unfortunate that some people will allow themselves to believe that a silly thing to do is some sort of art. It's unfortunate because it makes "artists" out of whoever can think up the silliest thing to do.

No, it allows far greater range. Nothing offers infinite range.

[ . . . ]

Of course, to some degree. Posing the subject is itself a creative act. The photographer has created something that did not exist before.

As I said some time ago: Anything that involves extraordinary manipulation of the image (i.e., with some definite purpose in mind) may be art. Putting a 1A filter on the lens wouldn't make it art. Lighting with unusual colors might, if doing so had a particular objective.

The point here is that art stems from the mind of the artist. That rules out happy accidents. If Jerome Zilch makes paintings by deliberately spilling cans of paint on canvas in a certain way, that's art. (Not art that I'd be likely to want to see, but art nonetheless.) If you knocked some cans of paint off a high shelf and they spilled over canvas producing a result that looked like a Jerome Zilch painting, that would not be art.

It REQUIRES that, but that alone does not CONSTITUTE art.

[ . . . ]

If he got enough alimony I presume he would have. Otherwise he'd have gotten a job, I should think. As a highly regarded painter he'd have been able to find work as an art teacher.

[ . . . ]

Doesn't have to be Photoshop; any other image-editing software that could give a painting or charcoal (or whatever) effect to a photo would probably do as well. And who needs an SLR? Surely a little kid could manage one of those cameras that sell for $25 in bubble packs. The software wouldn't care what the negatives were made in.

Of course it makes the difference between art and not-art. Is any ordinary run-of-the-mill snapshot art? Surely not. What about a painting that deliberately EMULATES an ordinary run-of-the-mill snapshot? Certainly that's art.

Were Andy Warhol's paintings of Campbell soup can labels art? Of course. Are
Campbell soup can labels art? Obviously not.

Nothing about that photo would make me particularly happy, but sure, I'd call it art.

Why the emphatic asterisks? My decisions are always mine alone. That's exactly what you don't like, remember? You want people to believe a thing is art because you say it's art.

I appreciate your sympathy, to, it allows far greater range. Nothing offers infinite range.

[ . . . ]

Of course, to some degree. Posing the subject is itself a creative act. The photographer has created something that did not exist before.

As I said some time ago: Anything that involves extraordinary manipulation of the image (i.e., with some definite purpose in mind) may be art. Putting a 1A filter on the lens wouldn't make it art. Lighting with unusual colors might, if doing so had a particular objective.

The point here is that art stems from the mind of the artist. That rules out happy accidents. If Jerome Zilch makes paintings by deliberately spilling cans of paint on canvas in a certain way, that's art. (Not art that I'd be likely to want to see, but art nonetheless.) If you knocked some cans of paint off a high shelf and they spilled over canvas producing a result that looked like a Jerome Zilch painting, that would not be art.

It REQUIRES that, but that alone does not CONSTITUTE art.

o, it allows far greater range. Nothing offers infinite range.

[ . . . ]

Of course, to some degree. Posing the subject is itself a creative act. The photographer has created something that did not exist before.

As I said some time ago: Anything that involves extraordinary manipulation of the image (i.e., with some definite purpose in mind) may be art. Putting a 1A filter on the lens wouldn't make it art. Lighting with unusual colors might, if doing so had a particular objective.

The point here is that art stems from the mind of the artist. That rules out happy accidents. If Jerome Zilch makes paintings by deliberately spilling cans of paint on canvas in a certain way, that's art. (Not art that I'd be likely to want to see, but art nonetheless.) If you knocked some cans of paint off a high shelf and they spilled over canvas producing a result that looked like a Jerome Zilch painting, that would not be art.

It REQUIRES that, but that alone does not CONSTITUTE art.

[ . . . ]

If he got enough alimony I presume he would have. Otherwise he'd have gotten a job, I should think. As a highly regarded painter he'd have been able to find work as an art teacher.

[ . . . ]

Doesn't have to be Photoshop; any other image-editing software that could give a painting or charcoal (or whatever) effect to a photo would probably do as well. And who needs an SLR? Surely a little kid could manage one of those cameras that sell for $25 in bubble packs. The software wouldn't care what the negatives were made in.

Of course it makes the difference between art and not-art. Is any ordinary run-of-the-mill snapshot art? Surely not. What about a painting that deliberately EMULATES an ordinary run-of-the-mill snapshot? Certainly that's art.

Were Andy Warhol's paintings of Campbell soup can labels art? Of course. Are
Campbell soup can labels art? Obviously not.

Nothing about that photo would make me particularly happy, but sure, I'd call it art.

Why the emphatic asterisks? My decisions are always mine alone. That's exactly what you don't like, remember? You want people to believe a thing is art because you say it's art.

I appreciate your sympathy, to, it allows far greater range. Nothing offers infinite range.

[ . . . ]

Of course, to some degree. Posing the subject is itself a creative act. The photographer has created something that did not exist before.

As I said some time ago: Anything that involves extraordinary manipulation of the image (i.e., with some definite purpose in mind) may be art. Putting a 1A filter on the lens wouldn't make it art. Lighting with unusual colors might, if doing so had a particular objective.

The point here is that art stems from the mind of the artist. That rules out happy accidents. If Jerome Zilch makes paintings by deliberately spilling cans of paint on canvas in a certain way, that's art. (Not art that I'd be likely to want to see, but art nonetheless.) If you knocked some cans of paint off a high shelf and they spilled over canvas producing a result that looked like a Jerome Zilch painting, that would not be art.

It REQUIRES that, but that alone does not CONSTITUTE art.

[ . . . ]

If he got enough alimony I presume he would have. Otherwise he'd have gotten a job, I should think. As a highly regarded painter he'd have been able to find work as an art teacher.

o, it allows far greater range. Nothing offers infinite range.

[ . . . ]

Of course, to some degree. Posing the subject is itself a creative act. The photographer has created something that did not exist before.

As I said some time ago: Anything that involves extraordinary manipulation of the image (i.e., with some definite purpose in mind) may be art. Putting a 1A filter on the lens wouldn't make it art. Lighting with unusual colors might, if doing so had a particular objective.

The point here is that art stems from the mind of the artist. That rules out happy accidents. If Jerome Zilch makes paintings by deliberately spilling cans of paint on canvas in a certain way, that's art. (Not art that I'd be likely to want to see, but art nonetheless.) If you knocked some cans of paint off a high shelf and they spilled over canvas producing a result that looked like a Jerome Zilch painting, that would not be art.

It REQUIRES that, but that alone does not CONSTITUTE art.

[ . . . ]

If he got enough alimony I presume he would have. Otherwise he'd have gotten a job, I should think. As a highly regarded painter he'd have been able to find work as an art teacher.

[ . . . ]

Doesn't have to be Photoshop; any other image-editing software that could give a painting or charcoal (or whatever) effect to a photo would probably do as well. And who needs an SLR? Surely a little kid could manage one of those cameras that sell for $25 in bubble packs. The software wouldn't care what the negatives were made in.

Of course it makes the difference between art and not-art. Is any ordinary run-of-the-mill snapshot art? Surely not. What about a painting that deliberately EMULATES an ordinary run-of-the-mill snapshot? Certainly that's art.

Were Andy Warhol's paintings of Campbell soup can labels art? Of course. Are
Campbell soup can labels art? Obviously not.

Nothing about that photo would make me particularly happy, but sure, I'd call it art.

Why the emphatic asterisks? My decisions are always mine alone. That's exactly what you don't like, remember? You want people to believe a thing is art because you say it's art.

I appreciate your sympathy, to, it allows far greater range. Nothing offers infinite range.

[ . . . ]

Of course, to some degree. Posing the subject is itself a creative act. The photographer has created something that did not exist before.

As I said some time ago: Anything that involves extraordinary manipulation of the image (i.e., with some definite purpose in mind) may be art. Putting a 1A filter on the lens wouldn't make it art. Lighting with unusual colors might, if doing so had a particular objective.

The point here is that art stems from the mind of the artist. That rules out happy accidents. If Jerome Zilch makes paintings by deliberately spilling cans of paint on canvas in a certain way, that's art. (Not art that I'd be likely to want to see, but art nonetheless.) If you knocked some cans of paint off a high shelf and they spilled over canvas producing a result that looked like a Jerome Zilch painting, that would not be art.

It REQUIRES that, but that alone does not CONSTITUTE art.

o, it allows far greater range. Nothing offers infinite range.

[ . . . ]

Of course, to some degree. Posing the subject is itself a creative act. The photographer has created something that did not exist before.

As I said some time ago: Anything that involves extraordinary manipulation of the image (i.e., with some definite purpose in mind) may be art. Putting a 1A filter on the lens wouldn't make it art. Lighting with unusual colors might, if doing so had a particular objective.

The point here is that art stems from the mind of the artist. That rules out happy accidents. If Jerome Zilch makes paintings by deliberately spilling cans of paint on canvas in a certain way, that's art. (Not art that I'd be likely to want to see, but art nonetheless.) If you knocked some cans of paint off a high shelf and they spilled over canvas producing a result that looked like a Jerome Zilch painting, that would not be art.

It REQUIRES that, but that alone does not CONSTITUTE art.

[ . . . ]

If he got enough alimony I presume he would have. Otherwise he'd have gotten a job, I should think. As a highly regarded painter he'd have been able to find work as an art teacher.

[ . . . ]

Doesn't have to be Photoshop; any other image-editing software that could give a painting or charcoal (or whatever) effect to a photo would probably do as well. And who needs an SLR? Surely a little kid could manage one of those cameras that sell for $25 in bubble packs. The software wouldn't care what the negatives were made in.

Of course it makes the difference between art and not-art. Is any ordinary run-of-the-mill snapshot art? Surely not. What about a painting that deliberately EMULATES an ordinary run-of-the-mill snapshot? Certainly that's art.

Were Andy Warhol's paintings of Campbell soup can labels art? Of course. Are
Campbell soup can labels art? Obviously not.

Nothing about that photo would make me particularly happy, but sure, I'd call it art.

Why the emphatic asterisks? My decisions are always mine alone. That's exactly what you don't like, remember? You want people to believe a thing is art because you say it's art.

I appreciate your sympathy, to, it allows far greater range. Nothing offers infinite range.

[ . . . ]

Of course, to some degree. Posing the subject is itself a creative act. The photographer has created something that did not exist before.

As I said some time ago: Anything that involves extraordinary manipulation of the image (i.e., with some definite purpose in mind) may be art. Putting a 1A filter on the lens wouldn't make it art. Lighting with unusual colors might, if doing so had a particular objective.

The point here is that art stems from the mind of the artist. That rules out happy accidents. If Jerome Zilch makes paintings by deliberately spilling cans of paint on canvas in a certain way, that's art. (Not art that I'd be likely to want to see, but art nonetheless.) If you knocked some cans of paint off a high shelf and they spilled over canvas producing a result that looked like a Jerome Zilch painting, that would not be art.

It REQUIRES that, but that alone does not CONSTITUTE art.

[ . . . ]

If he got enough alimony I presume he would have. Otherwise he'd have gotten a job, I should think. As a highly regarded painter he'd have been able to find work as an art teacher.

[ . . . ]

Doesn't have to be Photoshop; any other image-editing software that could give a painting or charcoal (or whatever) effect to a photo would probably do as well. And who needs an SLR? Surely a little kid could manage one of those cameras that sell for $25 in bubble packs. The software wouldn't care what the negatives were made in.

Of course it makes the difference between art and not-art. Is any ordinary run-of-the-mill snapshot art? Surely not. What about a painting that deliberately EMULATES an ordinary run-of-the-mill snapshot? Certainly that's art.

Were Andy Warhol's paintings of Campbell soup can labels art? Of course. Are
Campbell soup can labels art? Obviously not.

Nothing about that photo would make me particularly happy, but sure, I'd call it art.

Why the emphatic asterisks? My decisions are always mine alone. That's exactly what you don't like, remember? You want people to believe a thing is art because you say it's art.

I appreciate your sympathy, though I would prefer you sent a gift with actual monetary value.

What exactly would you expect the goal to be? Everyone agreeing with one side or the other?

Of course "the ceaseless arguments . . . will go nowhere," if your
"somewhere" would require resolution of the argument.

The whole point of the thing as far as I'm concerned is not to arrive at some settlement, but to freely exchange differing thoughts and opinions on the subject, and the reasons for holding those differing views. I think that that has value. If you don't think so, you probably would be happier to just skip these arguments that you know from the start are going to be
"ceaseless" and "go nowhere."

It is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

[ . . . ]

Lots of people are "living in poverty," which in the U.S. generally means having an insufficient number of color TVs and/or refusal to get an honest job. That a few of them may think of themselves as "artists" I have no doubt.

On the contrary, my view of art and artists is generally one of admiration, assuming of course that their work is worth that admiration. I am speaking here of real art and real artists, of course, not wannabe artists.
Commercial art is a very competitive field, and fine art just isn't something that most painters, even very good ones, can make a living at.
Those are life choices.

I used to know a married couple who were both artists. She was a fashion illustrator and made piles of money, enough to maintain homes in New York and Connecticut. He was a fine artist who had a lot of shows, minded the children at home while his wife was working, and I think his painting earned him about $150 a year. (But this was many years ago, and $150 was more money then.)

[ . . . ]

You have a remarkable talent for completely missing the point.

It has nothing to do with whether the image is or is not "realistic." The point is that art is a deliberate creative process, done with some specific end in mind when the work is begun. A painting that looks like a photograph is art because it is in the strictest sense a CREATION of the artist that required deliberate intent and design, skill and a lot of hands-on work.
That's art. A photograph that looks like a painting, on the other hand, may be the product of a three-year-old kid playing with daddy's Photoshop, just amusing himself, with no more actual objective than you'd expect a three-year-old to have. That isn't art. So yes, HOW the image was made is important.

Attaching a camera to a kite and tripping the shutter by radio (which must be an interesting pastime in itself) is likely to produce a lot of junk pictures but may also produce the occasional spectacular one. That isn't art, it's a happy accident. Happy accidents are not art.

You present an photo which is largely blurred, out of focus, contains vart is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

t is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

[ . . . ]

Lots of people are "living in poverty," which in the U.S. generally means having an insufficient number of color TVs and/or refusal to get an honest job. That a few of them may think of themselves as "artists" I have no doubt.

On the contrary, my view of art and artists is generally one of admiration, assuming of course that their work is worth that admiration. I am speaking here of real art and real artists, of course, not wannabe artists.
Commercial art is a very competitive field, and fine art just isn't something that most painters, even very good ones, can make a living at.
Those are life choices.

I used to know a married couple who were both artists. She was a fashion illustrator and made piles of money, enough to maintain homes in New York and Connecticut. He was a fine artist who had a lot of shows, minded the children at home while his wife was working, and I think his painting earned him about $150 a year. (But this was many years ago, and $150 was more money then.)

[ . . . ]

You have a remarkable talent for completely missing the point.

It has nothing to do with whether the image is or is not "realistic." The point is that art is a deliberate creative process, done with some specific end in mind when the work is begun. A painting that looks like a photograph is art because it is in the strictest sense a CREATION of the artist that required deliberate intent and design, skill and a lot of hands-on work.
That's art. A photograph that looks like a painting, on the other hand, may be the product of a three-year-old kid playing with daddy's Photoshop, just amusing himself, with no more actual objective than you'd expect a three-year-old to have. That isn't art. So yes, HOW the image was made is important.

Attaching a camera to a kite and tripping the shutter by radio (which must be an interesting pastime in itself) is likely to produce a lot of junk pictures but may also produce the occasional spectacular one. That isn't art, it's a happy accident. Happy accidents are not art.

You present an photo which is largely blurred, out of focus, contains vart is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

t is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

[ . . . ]

Lots of people are "living in poverty," which in the U.S. generally means having an insufficient number of color TVs and/or refusal to get an honest job. That a few of them may think of themselves as "artists" I have no doubt.

On the contrary, my view of art and artists is generally one of admiration, assuming of course that their work is worth that admiration. I am speaking here of real art and real artists, of course, not wannabe artists.
Commercial art is a very competitive field, and fine art just isn't something that most painters, even very good ones, can make a living at.
Those are life choices.

I used to know a married couple who were both artists. She was a fashion illustrator and made piles of money, enough to maintain homes in New York and Connecticut. He was a fine artist who had a lot of shows, minded the children at home while his wife was working, and I think his painting earned him about $150 a year. (But this was many years ago, and $150 was more money then.)

[ . . . ]

You have a remarkable talent for completely missing the point.

It has nothing to do with whether the image is or is not "realistic." The point is that art is a deliberate creative process, done with some specific end in mind when the work is begun. A painting that looks like a photograph is art because it is in the strictest sense a CREATION of the artist that required deliberate intent and design, skill and a lot of hands-on work.
That's art. A photograph that looks like a painting, on the other hand, may be the product of a three-year-old kid playing with daddy's Photoshop, just amusing himself, with no more actual objective than you'd expect a three-year-old to have. That isn't art. So yes, HOW the image was made is important.

Attaching a camera to a kite and tripping the shutter by radio (which must be an interesting pastime in itself) is likely to produce a lot of junk pictures but may also produce the occasional spectacular one. That isn't art, it's a happy accident. Happy accidents are not art.

You present an photo which is largely blurred, out of focus, contains vart is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

t is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

[ . . . ]

Lots of people are "living in poverty," which in the U.S. generally means having an insufficient number of color TVs and/or refusal to get an honest job. That a few of them may think of themselves as "artists" I have no doubt.

On the contrary, my view of art and artists is generally one of admiration, assuming of course that their work is worth that admiration. I am speaking here of real art and real artists, of course, not wannabe artists.
Commercial art is a very competitive field, and fine art just isn't something that most painters, even very good ones, can make a living at.
Those are life choices.

I used to know a married couple who were both artists. She was a fashion illustrator and made piles of money, enough to maintain homes in New York and Connecticut. He was a fine artist who had a lot of shows, minded the children at home while his wife was working, and I think his painting earned him about $150 a year. (But this was many years ago, and $150 was more money then.)

[ . . . ]

You have a remarkable talent for completely missing the point.

It has nothing to do with whether the image is or is not "realistic." The point is that art is a deliberate creative process, done with some specific end in mind when the work is begun. A painting that looks like a photograph is art because it is in the strictest sense a CREATION of the artist that required deliberate intent and design, skill and a lot of hands-on work.
That's art. A photograph that looks like a painting, on the other hand, may be the product of a three-year-old kid playing with daddy's Photoshop, just amusing himself, with no more actual objective than you'd expect a three-year-old to have. That isn't art. So yes, HOW the image was made is important.

Attaching a camera to a kite and tripping the shutter by radio (which must be an interesting pastime in itself) is likely to produce a lot of junk pictures but may also produce the occasional spectacular one. That isn't art, it's a happy accident. Happy accidents are not art.

You present an photo which is largely blurred, out of focus, contains vart is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

[ . . . ]

Lots of people are "living in poverty," which in the U.S. generally means having an insufficient number of color TVs and/or refusal to get an honest job. That a few of them may think of themselves as "artists" I have no doubt.

On the contrary, my view of art and artists is generally one of admiration, assuming of course that their work is worth that admiration. I am speaking here of real art and real artists, of course, not wannabe artists.
Commercial art is a very competitive field, and fine art just isn't something that most painters, even very good ones, can make a living at.
Those are life choices.

I used to know a married couple who were both artists. She was a fashion illustrator and made piles of money, enough to maintain homes in New York and Connecticut. He was a fine artist who had a lot of shows, minded the children at home while his wife was working, and I think his painting earned him about $150 a year. (But this was many years ago, and $150 was more money then.)

t is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

[ . . . ]

Lots of people are "living in poverty," which in the U.S. generally means having an insufficient number of color TVs and/or refusal to get an honest job. That a few of them may think of themselves as "artists" I have no doubt.

On the contrary, my view of art and artists is generally one of admiration, assuming of course that their work is worth that admiration. I am speaking here of real art and real artists, of course, not wannabe artists.
Commercial art is a very competitive field, and fine art just isn't something that most painters, even very good ones, can make a living at.
Those are life choices.

I used to know a married couple who were both artists. She was a fashion illustrator and made piles of money, enough to maintain homes in New York and Connecticut. He was a fine artist who had a lot of shows, minded the children at home while his wife was working, and I think his painting earned him about $150 a year. (But this was many years ago, and $150 was more money then.)

[ . . . ]

You have a remarkable talent for completely missing the point.

It has nothing to do with whether the image is or is not "realistic." The point is that art is a deliberate creative process, done with some specific end in mind when the work is begun. A painting that looks like a photograph is art because it is in the strictest sense a CREATION of the artist that required deliberate intent and design, skill and a lot of hands-on work.
That's art. A photograph that looks like a painting, on the other hand, may be the product of a three-year-old kid playing with daddy's Photoshop, just amusing himself, with no more actual objective than you'd expect a three-year-old to have. That isn't art. So yes, HOW the image was made is important.

Attaching a camera to a kite and tripping the shutter by radio (which must be an interesting pastime in itself) is likely to produce a lot of junk pictures but may also produce the occasional spectacular one. That isn't art, it's a happy accident. Happy accidents are not art.

You present an photo which is largely blurred, out of focus, contains vart is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

t is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

[ . . . ]

Lots of people are "living in poverty," which in the U.S. generally means having an insufficient number of color TVs and/or refusal to get an honest job. That a few of them may think of themselves as "artists" I have no doubt.

On the contrary, my view of art and artists is generally one of admiration, assuming of course that their work is worth that admiration. I am speaking here of real art and real artists, of course, not wannabe artists.
Commercial art is a very competitive field, and fine art just isn't something that most painters, even very good ones, can make a living at.
Those are life choices.

I used to know a married couple who were both artists. She was a fashion illustrator and made piles of money, enough to maintain homes in New York and Connecticut. He was a fine artist who had a lot of shows, minded the children at home while his wife was working, and I think his painting earned him about $150 a year. (But this was many years ago, and $150 was more money then.)

[ . . . ]

You have a remarkable talent for completely missing the point.

It has nothing to do with whether the image is or is not "realistic." The point is that art is a deliberate creative process, done with some specific end in mind when the work is begun. A painting that looks like a photograph is art because it is in the strictest sense a CREATION of the artist that required deliberate intent and design, skill and a lot of hands-on work.
That's art. A photograph that looks like a painting, on the other hand, may be the product of a three-year-old kid playing with daddy's Photoshop, just amusing himself, with no more actual objective than you'd expect a three-year-old to have. That isn't art. So yes, HOW the image was made is important.

Attaching a camera to a kite and tripping the shutter by radio (which must be an interesting pastime in itself) is likely to produce a lot of junk pictures but may also produce the occasional spectacular one. That isn't art, it's a happy accident. Happy accidents are not art.

You present an photo which is largely blurred, out of focus, contains vart is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

t is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

[ . . . ]

Lots of people are "living in poverty," which in the U.S. generally means having an insufficient number of color TVs and/or refusal to get an honest job. That a few of them may think of themselves as "artists" I have no doubt.

On the contrary, my view of art and artists is generally one of admiration, assuming of course that their work is worth that admiration. I am speaking here of real art and real artists, of course, not wannabe artists.
Commercial art is a very competitive field, and fine art just isn't something that most painters, even very good ones, can make a living at.
Those are life choices.

I used to know a married couple who were both artists. She was a fashion illustrator and made piles of money, enough to maintain homes in New York and Connecticut. He was a fine artist who had a lot of shows, minded the children at home while his wife was working, and I think his painting earned him about $150 a year. (But this was many years ago, and $150 was more money then.)

[ . . . ]

You have a remarkable talent for completely missing the point.

It has nothing to do with whether the image is or is not "realistic." The point is that art is a deliberate creative process, done with some specific end in mind when the work is begun. A painting that looks like a photograph is art because it is in the strictest sense a CREATION of the artist that required deliberate intent and design, skill and a lot of hands-on work.
That's art. A photograph that looks like a painting, on the other hand, may be the product of a three-year-old kid playing with daddy's Photoshop, just amusing himself, with no more actual objective than you'd expect a three-year-old to have. That isn't art. So yes, HOW the image was made is important.

Attaching a camera to a kite and tripping the shutter by radio (which must be an interesting pastime in itself) is likely to produce a lot of junk pictures but may also produce the occasional spectacular one. That isn't art, it's a happy accident. Happy accidents are not art.

You present an photo which is largely blurred, out of focus, contains vart is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

t is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

[ . . . ]

Lots of people are "living in poverty," which in the U.S. generally means having an insufficient number of color TVs and/or refusal to get an honest job. That a few of them may think of themselves as "artists" I have no doubt.

On the contrary, my view of art and artists is generally one of admiration, assuming of course that their work is worth that admiration. I am speaking here of real art and real artists, of course, not wannabe artists.
Commercial art is a very competitive field, and fine art just isn't something that most painters, even very good ones, can make a living at.
Those are life choices.

I used to know a married couple who were both artists. She was a fashion illustrator and made piles of money, enough to maintain homes in New York and Connecticut. He was a fine artist who had a lot of shows, minded the children at home while his wife was working, and I think his painting earned him about $150 a year. (But this was many years ago, and $150 was more money then.)

[ . . . ]

You have a remarkable talent for completely missing the point.

It has nothing to do with whether the image is or is not "realistic." The point is that art is a deliberate creative process, done with some specific end in mind when the work is begun. A painting that looks like a photograph is art because it is in the strictest sense a CREATION of the artist that required deliberate intent and design, skill and a lot of hands-on work.
That's art. A photograph that looks like a painting, on the other hand, may be the product of a three-year-old kid playing with daddy's Photoshop, just amusing himself, with no more actual objective than you'd expect a three-year-old to have. That isn't art. So yes, HOW the image was made is important.

Attaching a camera to a kite and tripping the shutter by radio (which must be an interesting pastime in itself) is likely to produce a lot of junk pictures but may also produce the occasional spectacular one. That isn't art, it's a happy accident. Happy accidents are not art.

You present an photo which is largely blurred, out of focus, contains vart is not a creative act, no. Neither is it like using a photocopier, since that allows no choice of viewpoint. The camera allows much more flexibility in the act of recording than does the photocopier. The photographer may choose his viewpoint (position), angle of view (focal length), depth of field (aperture) and so on. None of these things can the photocopier do.
Camera and photocopier are both recording devices, but the camera allows far greater range of SELECTION of those and other characteristics.

That said, I have seen stuff done on the photocopier that was closer to real art than most people can manage with a camera.

[ . . . ]

Again that inattention (or reading disability?). I think I said several times that photographic images may be art if they are manipulated to some extraordinary degree. By "extraordinary degree" I mean something well beyond choosing a different aperture, focal length, paper grade, etc.

But to head off further possible misunderstanding, I don't accept that any sort of such manipulation necessarily makes a photo art, either. The photo critic Julia Scully for example once greatly admired the "work" of some dingdong whose contribution to such "art" was to mutilate negatives by scratching through the emulsion before printing them. I wouldn't accept that sort of thing as art, simply because as mentioned earlier I make a distinction between art and plain silliness.

No. Arrangement and manipulation of final print and subjects makes those examples less "lacking in art."

The explanation is in the answers.

[ . . . ]

Exactly. And excellent editing is not to be sneezed at, though it is not creative art.

Again there is the distinction between SELECTION and CREATION. See how clear this is all becoming?

[ . . . ]

Lots of people are "living in poverty," which in the U.S. generally means having an insufficient number of color TVs and/or refusal to get an honest job. That a few of them may think of themselves as "artists" I have no doubt.

On the contrary, my view of art and artists is generally one of admiration, assuming of course that their work is worth that admiration. I am speaking here of real art and real artists, of course, not wannabe artists.
Commercial art is a very competitive field, and fine art just isn't something that most painters, even very good ones, can make a living at.
Those are life choices.

I used to know a married couple who were both artists. She was a fashion illustrator and made piles of money, enough to maintain homes in New York and Connecticut. He was a fine artist who had a lot of shows, minded the children at home while his wife was working, and I think his painting earned him about $150 a year. (But this was many years ago, and $150 was more money then.)

[ . . . ]

You have a remarkable talent for completely missing the point.

It has nothing to do with whether the image is or is not "realistic." The point is that art is a deliberate creative process, done with some specific end in mind when the work is begun. A painting that looks like a photograph is art because it is in the strictest sense a CREATION of the artist that required deliberate intent and design, skill and a lot of hands-on work.
That's art. A photograph that looks like a painting, on the other hand, may be the product of a three-year-old kid playing with daddy's Photoshop, just amusing himself, with no more actual objective than you'd expect a three-year-old to have. That isn't art. So yes, HOW the image was made is important.

Attaching a camera to a kite and tripping the shutter by radio (which must be an interesting pastime in itself) is likely to produce a lot of junk pictures but may also produce the occasional spectacular one. That isn't art, it's a happy accident. Happy accidents are not art.

You present an photo which is largely blurred, out of focus, contains various blobs of light and evidently is a multiple image. You apparently don't know how it was made. It may be a multiple exposure or multiple printing, or it may be an image assembled in a computer; in those cases it would be the result of deliberate intent, extraordinary manipulation of images, and, therefore, art. Or on the other hand it may be that someone took a long-exposure shot having no idea what the result would be, or even left his camera on the table with the shutter open for a short time. Again, happy accidents are not art. So yes, again, HOW the image was made is important.

Do you understand the answer yet, or not?

As they do frequently

Speaking of which, here's a shot of my son on his second birthday that
I'm very happy with: <http://lo.ve.ly/art/Toy!_std.jpg> You'll have to to make up your own mind as to whether it's special or not, I'm far too biased.

<nods> Art is about vision. Whether it's how the artist sees the world, or how they express the image in their mind, or some combination of both.

Maybe only as a starting point. Maybe the artistic vision had already imagined what this image could be used for when processed a certain way. The poster's point, I believe, is that the copier is just a copier. It makes no selection or exclusion of the image, no selection of lens, aperture, speed, film. That is a starting point with students. Getting to the complex stuff is another level.
Nothing is wrong with it. In fact, that is photojournalism. But photojournalism is only a part of photography, not all of it. Are you familiar with the work of Jerry Uelesmann? He makes complex print images from multiple negatives. I understand that he makes multiple masks, sets up the easel with guides for each enlarger and then carries the easel from enlarger to enlarger to create the final image.
Interesting. I think that sometimes a single well-selected image may convey the ambiance of a scene better than many images, and perhaps, for the memory, better than the experience.
Agreed. Just like a book or painting. What the person creates is more important than what he/she thought was being created. Indeed, post-modern interpretation argues that what the author intended is not relevant, that the work itself is the text for interpretation.
Photojournalist photography is real art if it captures the scene in a compelling manner.
Skill makes a worker.
Skill plus thought makes a craftsman.
Skill plus thought plus heart makes an artist.
Because that is what their heart compels them to be. And, it is not so much to "declare" that but to DO art.
No, you can take an image and represent it in extreme high contrast, making it abstract. Or you can lith print an image to make certain parts stand out that would not with ordinary printing. Or you