Lately, I see a lot of "art" done by photographers using very fancy equipment or processes. Sure, it's great to see nice work, however more and more it seems that some photographers are doing a simplistic recording of another person's artwork in their books.
In one sense, recording things around us or in our lives is surely part of the art in photography, especially when there is at least something special that the photographer brings to it. What bothers me is seeing people record the following in a very straightforward manner and then sell it or present it as their own "art" creation:
photos of tatoos, where the tatoos are the prinicpal / sole subject.
photos of a building, where the building is the only subject, presented in an plain manner
photos of objects that are not in an artistic setting/composition, with plain light
photos where a billboard makes the statement and is really the sole subject
I would make an exception for recording nature or found art, or makeing statements
through the use of one or more found objects, or taking us to a viewpoint or time point
that we might not visit perhaps. A whole context of things, where the photo is about
that context is fine with me too - for example, a cityscape at a particular time.
It's an important and legitimate part of photography to record/document things, I'm not
knocking that, however when the photographer puts it up as his or her great art, I'm
bothered by it somehow. If I snapped a shot of a famous scupture, by itself, in isolation
from anything else, I don't think I'd be pushing it as my art.
It's a gray area at times Where do YOU draw the line on it?
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