Photography hot takes!

[MattKing]

For an art form to truly shine it need no justification to exist. It needs to appeal to everyone, from the uneducated to the connoisseur.

Understanding more about a piece of art isn't a process of seeking justification. It is a process of getting more out of a piece of art that already interests or satisfies or attracts appreciation.

For me, I want to see effort in art. I want to see that thought, time and intent went into the work.

I'm prepared to appreciate both effort, and remarkable inspiration - art that appears brilliant and almost effortless is fine by me. A lot of beautiful but also simple music is like this.

 

[pbromaghin]

The “decisive Moment” is just a marketing phrase.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Considering all the fine arts, poets would be the closest to photographers.

 

[tcolgate]

WE only admire a few of Ansel Adams' work out of thousands of pictures he took. We look at the same few HCB pictures over and over. If I see that boy with the wine bottles again, I might get drunk. Same with most photographers. They've shot hundreds of thousands and only a relatively few stand out.

Garry Winogrand didn;t even develop much of his film. When he died suddenly in 1984 at the age of 56, he left behind a staggering backlog of un-sequenced and un-beheld work. He was famously more obsessed with the physical act of shooting on the streets than with editing or archiving his results.

All those mentioned were working photographers that all got to curate and style their negatives into the photographs we've come to know. Maier didn't get that opportunity. We have a proverbial hard drive if RAWs.
She might have been satisfied with an uncropped straight grade 2 of any of her negatives, or she may have had strong opinions on sequencing, presentation and an aesthetic.
We know *exacrly* how Ansel wanted his prints. So much so that when his eyes started going his assistant used to have to tell him that his own prints weren't right.
We literally do not have Maier's art.