"'Raising kids is like training dogs' he said. She thought 'Now what' She was approaching thirty and thought he'd be the one. Although they'd only gone out a few times, he seemed like he had that quality. Besides, lately she'd started thinking in terms of fathers not husbands. What would he say to spoil it? 'Some guys are really tough on their dogs and use punishment to train them, others use praise and rewards. But it really doesn't matter; the guys with good dogs are the guys who put a lot of time into it. Same with kids. You can be strict or lenient, but to get a good kid, you gotta spend time with 'im. I mean a lot of time. That's the secret' She just smiled."
When I look at the many photos taken by amateur photographers, I'm struck by how many are trash. Not the photos themselves, which are often quite well framed and technincally excellent. No, I'm talking about the subject matter. I see so many photos of abandoned buildings, broken down machines, trash strewn gutters, and polluted shorelines that I want to try and address this issue and offer some advice to budding photogs. To begin, I think we must step back and think about what art photography really is.
I saw a photograph of some interesting graffiti posted on a website recently. The photo was appealing because the graffiti was appealing and the photograph was accurate enough to convey the beauty of the scene without getting in the way, so to speak. This made me think "what if, I took a picture of some artistic masterpiece, closely cropped so that the painting itself was essentially the photograph. What would we have?" Well, if I was technically accurate, used good film, good technique, and an accurate lens, I'd have something that would reflect, to a lesser extent to be sure, the beauty of the original work. Most people would agree that that might be a good photograph but it's not art. It's merely a photograph of art. This presents a problem. Ignoring trick photography for now, a camera can only record what is seen, not create what is seen in the photographers mind. If this is the case, how can there be such a thing as art photography? Does it exist? And if so, how do we turn a recording medium into a creative one?
It might be easier to start by first describing what isn't photographic art. Probably the greater part of all photos ever taken are "moments of record". That is they serve to record and preserve some event that was of interest to the picture taker. Birthday snapshots fall into this category as does vacation photos, and graduation images, and so on and so forth to the tune of hundreds of millions of images. Most of these shots are technically poor, but that's not important. The pleasure to the viewer is the memory that is evoked through prodding by the photo. However for people not connected with the event, the photo evokes no emotional connection. Yet, there are photos of this kind which, although we have no connection to the circumstances portrayed in the scene, still evoke a strong emotional response. A picture of a small child which is particularly poignant might be a good example. Here we can say that the photo has stepped out of its mere snapshot existance and has taken a step toward a more universal appeal . Is it art? Probably not, but we might be on the right track.
When we think of any art we are at least partly referring to the creative process itself. Beautiful scenes found in nature are not art because they are not created by man but found by him. However we might define art, the creative process is a key component of of that description. The creativity of the painter is quite obvious. He starts with a blank canvas and by adding that which is not of the subject he creates the image where there was none; he doesn't glue grapes on the canvas to make a still life. In a similar way, when we take a photo we don't attach grapes to the negative when we photograph a vineyard. We use materials foreign to the subject to portray the subject. But in keeping with the axiom that creation is at the nucleus of art, if the man working in oils were to simply render that which he sees on the kitchen table onto the easel, we might think him a good technician, but not much of an artist. Yet, the technical aspect of rendering accurately in oils what we see with our eyes is so astounding to most people that the mere mimicking of nature validates their definition of what is and isn't art. Here the photographer is at a disadvantage which is in reality a great asset. Because the chemical processes used in photography have for so long been mechanically produced by machines as easily available as the cameras themselves. The act of merely reproducing nature in a photograph no longer astounds (as it once did) and such an act is not mistaken for art but is recognized for what it really is: mere mimickry. It can be technically exquisite, but it is in essence craft not art. The photographer, freed from the mistaken label of artist, unlike the technically accurate painter, must labor to create to be considered creative.
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