There's an interesting issue pointed out in the book, "Art & Fear" and I'd like to bring it out to people here so as to help me find a deeper understanding to w hat I'm doing. Here it goes:-

"In the first third of this century, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and a few fellow travellers turned the then-prevailing work of soft-focus photographic art upsid e down. They did so by developing a visual philosphy that justified sharply-focs images, and introduced the natural landscape as a subject for photographic art. It took dacades for their point to filter into public consciousness, but it sur e has now: pictures appearing in anything from cigarette ads to Sierra Club book s owe their current acceptance to those once-controversial images. Indeed, that vision has so prevasively become ours that people photographing vacation scenery today often do so with the hope that if everything turns out just right, the re sult will not simply look like a landscape, it will look like an Ansel Adams pho tograph of the landscape.

This too will pass, of course. In fact, artistically speaking, it has passed. Th e unfolding over time of a great idea is like a growth of a fractal crystal, all owing details and refinements to multiply endlessly - but only in ever-decreasin g scale. Eventually (perhaps by the early 1960's) those who stepped forward to c arry the West Coast Landscape Photography banner were not producing art, so much as reproducing the history of art. Separated two or three generations from the forces that spawned the vision they championed, they were left making images of experiences they never quite had. If you find yourself caught in similiar circum stances, we modestly offer this bit of cowboy wisdom: When the horse dies, get o ff."

It would not be too far away to suggest that many of us (myself included) is sti ll riding on a dead horse (or is the horse dead?). For those courageous enough t o side-step this "sharply focus" path, have you found understanding, satisfactio n and acceptance to your art? How far have you wandered off? Have you found your own vision? Or do you believe that f64 is still the better (the only truthful) way to go? Your contribution is appreciated.

Thanks,

Aaron

PS: Hope this thread does not offend anyone.