However, not many photos actually demand high prices. The list of "legendary" photographers is also short - and each of those photographers is normally known mostly for only a handful of photos.
Other than staged photographs (still-lifes, studio shots, actually posed photos), people don't really think photographers are in control over what they photograph. To most people, that means it's not art - it's a "capture". While people will acknowledge "capture" takes skill, they think of it more like someone with a butterfly net. You capture a butterfly and pin it to the wall - you didn't make it.
In contrast, most people believe a true artist is in control of the art. Some people even get surprised when they learn about things like the camera obscura and the fact that many artists trace or copy from photos - they feel that diminishes the art, that it's cheating.
Don, a very meaty comment and lots of food for thought.
Regarding artists using photos or tools to create their non-photo work, yes, I’ve heard that for years. In fact, when I was in 7th grade, the only time I ever had “art class” in my K-12 years, I flunked a drawing of a lighthouse because I’d used a ruler to lay out the vertical lines, flunked for “cheating.” Years later I trained and then worked as a mechanical drafter in the pre-computer era when I never “flunked” a drawing for using a straightedge or templates. In the meantime, I continued to draw outside that mechanical world and mastered drawing straight lines without the assistance of tools. I suppose I turned that 7th-grade experience into a positive.
Moved ahead to 2015-2022 and I find myself completing a BFA where not only are straightedges readily available in our art studios but also opaque projectors, especially useful when enlarging small sketches or other reference pieces to mural size. I never heard that these methods were a form of cheating.
And I think you are right on with your observation that photography might be marginalized as it only captures what is there. On a related note, a few semesters ago I was taking an advanced photography class where we designed our own syllabus and submitted a proposal for approval and critique by the rest of the participants. Everyone in the class was planning on shooting digital and using lots of Photoshop where I was going to use Van Dyke, cyanotype, Mordancage, and Sabbatier with the specific goal to place the “hand of the artist” into my work and I challenged the other students that, if the hand of the artist is an important feature of art, to explain how they would show the same in their work. After all, where is it in a digitally-assisted photo and who gets credit for the work produced by using the filters in Photoshop, the artist who selected them or the programmer who wrote them? ( I lean toward the former but it was interesting to create a discussion point.)
While I fully understand the issue of photography only ”capturing” what is there, HCB did tell us that it is more than just that and I fully agree. I’ve taken that to heart along with my search for Barthes “punctum” in my own work, two things that continue to challenge beyond the mechanical and technical sides of photography.