A thousand monkey's -who needs Eggleston

**rwyoung** · 7-Feb-2008, 07:36

Originally Posted by Gordon Moat

Anyway, I think if you looked through the editors choices from Fritz, you might find a good match-up against Winograd, or even Meyerowitz.

Gordon Moat Photography

Meyerowitz vs. Meowerwitz

**mrladewig** · 7-Feb-2008, 10:29

Originally Posted by ageorge

Photography has been described as a practice of selection. What to put in the frame and what not to put in the frame. It seems to me that with Fritz, image capture is more or less random and that the editing or selecting of interesting images out of the random mass is where creative input/selection is inserted.

If the outcome is the same, what does it matter whether the "selection" process was applied before or after the photo was taken.

I'm personally rather impressed that the camera works and doesn't just get shots of the ground or fur all the time.

**Christopher Breitenstein** · 7-Feb-2008, 11:33

It will be a great day for Photography when people, not just viewers but photographers as well, realize that photographs are not pictures of things!

Were this photograph an oil painting would it still be held as rubbish by so many? or does the change in medium change the manner in which it is seen? If you hold photography to be an art form; then judging photography with a different set of values than all other visual arts are judged is hypocritical stance. If you hold oil/water paintings, drawings of all types, sculpture, and most importantly mixed media as art forms to be judged on their own merits (not on what they are pictures of, or representing, but some other standard), then by virtue you must judge photography in the same manner. Failing to do so shows you don't truly hold photography as an art form. Whatever you illocutionary opinion may be.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but rather to show that photography is not truly held as an art form by most (based on the previously given standards), and show that resolving the discussion of "Is photography Art" as yes, when photographers and viewers alike don't agree, is extremely harmful to the medium.

Yours;

**Gordon Moat** · 7-Feb-2008, 14:06

This really is all in fun. I think avoiding the What is Art? discussion is probably a better course of action here.

Just to make it clear, my specialty in college was oil painting. I work as a commercial photographer, though I sometimes exhibit photography as art (including Polaroid manipulations). If it is in a gallery, museum, or art history text, then it is an established medium of expression . . . and that applies to all art, whether or not we like it. There is no mob rule, be we can learn these aspects by observing, and being aware of what is out there.

Toil, effort, and difficulty (or lack of it), should never be criteria for what makes art. While oil paintings can involve a great deal of effort, hand skills, or technical skills, that is not why it is still considered more highly than other art forms. Photography has been around over 150 years, and is an accepted art form. Craftsmanship is a completely separate issue, and I think over-emphasis can devalue the results . . . causing a different sort of harm. Yes, praise good craftsmanship, in painting, sculpture, or photography, but don't elevate/emphasize it beyond the results . . . to do so smacks of marketing.

People might scoff at the results of a little cat on his daily journeys. Even if you dismiss it, or don't like it, if you do not understand why this is appealing, then you have missed a learning opportunity.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography