What Makes it art, when it simply could be a snapshot?

Ditto. I was exercising restraint by not saying so. That is why I stopped responding to his rants. If he keeps it up I will put him on my ignore list.

Steve

 

the strange thing is
JS MD is neither a professional photographer
nor a art historian, but a doctor ( guessing from username )
but against her/his own argument, her/his opinions matter more than the rest of
the lay-people here on apug ?
and there are MFAs, art historians and working professional photographers
responding in this thread whose opinions are worthless ...

 

Ah, the recurring "what makes a photograph art" thread - second only to the "Film vs. Digital" thread in it's persistence!

In my opinion, art is like Love - nobody universally agrees on a single definition. I must say, I am personally disgusted that such poorly composes snapshots are even listed on a site that uses the (pretentious) term "Fine Art". At most they might have some historical significance as being rather old colour photographs, depicting aspects of a society that has since changed. But that is true of most photographs depicting any human relics or activity, I think.

So - not to say that snapshots cannot be immensely interesting, but I really do feel that the "craft" bit needs to play a role in "art" (it is a "labour" of love, after all)...

It's all marketing and hype in my opinion. I'd be damn thrilled if somebody would sell my careless snapshots for lots of money though!

 

You have my agreement to the fullest extent.

'You can't polish a turd', some say. Well, first you have to define what a turd is, and that's where we all disagree. Even the term 'photograph' is subjective, because we can't agree what constitutes a 'photograph' in terms of how it was captured, and what was done to it in processing before it's displayed (as a print or digital representation online). Now to try to agree on what's 'art' takes it to yet another level of subjective interpretation. To argue about what can be considered 'art' is futile, because there will never be a reply that we all agree upon.

This is why I simply call them 'pictures'. Nobody can argue with that, and it helps in focusing the topic of conversation on things like framing, gesture, light, color, texture, and so on, which are less subjective terms, and they fairly objectively describe the picture without getting into confusing nomenclature of how to label it.

 

Exactly...which also gets me to the famous and highly philosophical proverb.."someone's crap is always someone else's treasure".

The key word is, as always, "SUBJECTIVE". If it was otherwise, why would there people out there paying thousands (or even millions) for what some of us would consider crap and wouldn't pay $1 for? Is it because we are not educated enough to know what we like and can't see the intrinsic value in something that we simply don't enjoy looking at? That's total BS.

 

philosomatographer, thomas and max

that all sounds good,
but do you have the credentials
to back up your opinions ?

:munch:

 

None of what I said is an opinion. When I lay down the facts, listen up! For it is the law by which you will abide. Or the wrath of the Swedish trolls will spare no expense in tormenting you.

 

Yeah!!!!

 

For whom does the bell troll? It trolls for thee!

 

Nope, sorry.

 

I am not qualified to back up my opinions!

 

I'll remember that next time there's a discussion about the virtues of Xtol...

 

Sure if it flows your boat!

 

Will you eXtol its virtues?

 

What virtues?

 

Rodinal rules, man. Xtol sucks.

 

Finally, someone comes out with the plain, cold, hard truth!

 

Well, none other than my work, which, as we have just all agreed upon, is subjective What does "credentials" mean in terms of "art", in anyway?

 

That only applies to this thread so that I can throw the Troll a bone.

 

to be honest, philosomatographer, i have no idea ..
but i am sure JS MD can enlighten us
because according to what s/he said in this thread
one can't have a valid opinion without the "proper credentials"
the same thing was said in a different thread a few weeks ago

... maybe the respondent in this thread
is the same person ( and a different user name/id ) as was in
the cindy sherman thread ...

nice work btw!

john

 

I saw a quote tonight from Frank Zappa which seems relevant in this thread;

"Art is making something out of nothing and selling it."

 

The point is - art is whatever you make of it. If you want to make ornaments out of fish hooks and worn out t-shirts and call it art, then who's to stop you? Nobody can disagree, because it's a subjective term.

For me, I stopped thinking about it a long time ago.
I call myself a photographer (not an artist).
I take pictures.
I make silver gelatin and inkjet prints.
Very easily defined and understood.
Why do you have to put a label on it?

 

thanks for the quote and reminder barry ...
i have to go to montana soon, but i can't find
my pigmy pony ...