bikertut Loc: Kingsville, MO

Art, at least partially, comes from learning. Learning and experimenting in the age of film was, for me, a very slow and expensive process. Without a darkroom, I had to shoot and then wait until I finished a roll, take it to be developed and then pay for prints to see what I did. By then I didn’t remember camera settings, I just turned turned the dial until my meter said ok, and took the shot.

Learning has accelerated (more than a Tiger) with the instant feedback of digital.

So Art can come faster to the Artist. Some of us may never make it past “interesting picture”.

Yankeepapa6 Loc: New York City

Sounds a lot like technology using RAM, Microprocessors, and CPU. Not art.

Edia Loc: Central New Jersey

Photography is a subjective art. It matters less what equipment was used to capture the image than the observer's reaction to the image. That is why photos taken by Matthew Brady 150 years ago with primitive equipment still have emotional power. That is why impressionist artists like Renoir or Picasso still are shown in Museums and evoke reactions. Modern cameras can record reality well but only a skilled photographer can produce a truly emotional reaction in observers.

barbie.lewis Loc: Livingston, Texas

I think that what has been lost is patience and diligence (two of the seven "heavenly virtues"), not "art."

Imagine toting a 4x5 (Or 8x10) plate or sheet film camera into the field. Setting up to take a photo was difficult, time consuming, and costly. You went after a specific, well-considered image, you didn't "spray and pray."

We get many fine artistic photos now, certainly cleaner, clearer, and sharper than in the "old days," but many are now the result of serendipity rather than vision.

ELNikkor

I literally threw away a rolliflex twinlens 120 when its cocker jammed, and a yashicamat twinlens 120 (both used gifts) because I hated the unnaturallness of the square format, the cumbersomeness of 120, and the foolishness of looking straight down into a box and trying to figure out which way to tilt the thing to get the right composition, when my Nikon FM was so much more convenient. I agonized over the expense of getting a Polaroid back for my F3 just so I could instantly check the lighting, and decided it wasn't worth it, so I wasted a lot of film with bracketing. Fine focusing often didn't turn out too good, and follow-focusing for soccer was a lot of hit and miss. Needless to say, all the contemporary "magic" the new cameras and lenses provide has vastly improved my acceptable percentage, and I have no reason to "pine for the good ol' days". (Though I do sneak a roll of T-max through my FM2 or XA now 'n then! : )

spowers5 Loc: upstate New York

For some of us the extra features keep us interested and taking more and different photos. Some of us have bodys that can no longer do what our mind wants us to (it's called getting old) and the extra features and better lenses help. To each his own.

Gampa

Look at it as the best of both worlds ... the application of technology (the evolving camera) to the creative process (photography)

spowers5 Loc: upstate New York

Well put

TheDman Loc: USA

What makes you think one or the other has more artistic merit?

ballsafire Loc: Lafayette, Louisiana

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

My thinking always comes back to inherent artistic vision. Without it, we're destined to remain at just so-so. We can all be photographers but few are also artists. Producing what you envision beforehand separates the artist from the photographer.

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

To create a pleasing image - you have to be there! The camera does not go alone.(Yet)
Part of the skill and enjoyment of photography is in the 'discovery' and story of how and when you took each image. What you were thinking, what info you could gather, the 'history' or 'social aspect' of what you captured.
A photograph is a historical time capsule which you eventually delete from the camera. An 'Aid Memoir' generally of several events beyond what is pictured.You might even redevelop an image in several different itterations. The Image may well be a cut down essence of 'the whole' (The camera may not do this) it could have colour distortion in order to give it additional 'Punch' or a 'romantic' aura. Distractions may have been removed in order to improve its message.
The camara merely captures what is there...Post processing creates what you want to be there. Not necessarily with big physical changes, but by subtle 'tinkering' with 'reality'. (Philosophically, anything you want, as we all see life 'differently'.)
Probably the quality of the camera allows us to get a better starting point - the quality of our imagination and post processing skill allows us to build from that point.
Like anything 'artisan' the end result will please or offend admirere's and critic's.

Progress has a tendency to simplyfy 'difficult' or 'awkward' tasks. It allows more people to 'do' and 'have'. The results can astound or disturb. Photography and the internet has brought different peoples 'imagination' likes and dislikes into 'our individual' consciouseness. We are 'bombarded' by scenes from the exotic to the mundane - often without explanation or context. A bit like reading words without sentences. Your understanding of each word in isolation may not create the right meaning as it does to others.

Is this good - of course it is. We 'see' more of our physical world and learn more about different peoples emotions, likes and lives.

Photography is, what it always has been. The capture of single moments in someone's life! Some are fleeting and some create a 'body of work' that other people find 'meaning' from. (wherever their imagination takes them as often it is at cross purposes to the creator)

Be happy - it lifts your appreciation of life

Ariel

Photography has yet to reach the status of an art form,the recording of an event or place does not make it an art form. It just
tells us that at a certain place at a certain time a mechanical recording was made of said time or place. Composing what you see
into a presentable frame does not make it art . Art is not about taking snap shots no matter how fleetingly interesting are the snap shots.
One can to make a buck call anything an art form ,but art in the historical sense is concerned with other things besides recording an
event . One of the most famous of photographers returned to drawing and sketching ,noting" this is where it is ". To feel good
you may call photography whatever you like but at this writing it has a long way to go in becoming an art form .

anotherview Loc: California

The craft of photography may rise to art in the right hands, a view the puts skill first over means. From this perspective, your concerns become automatically addressed and answered.

That said, a worthy photograph results from a cameraman applying his knowledge, skills, intelligence, and experience to capture an interesting subject and then to develop it to bring out its potential.

Of course, artfulness in doing photography will likely produce a more satisfying photograph. The quality of artfulness varies. This variation will tell in the photographic outcome.

We also have the dimension of professional photographers, meaning a photographer who earns money doing photography. He concerns himself primarily with taking photographs known as money shots. Hence, an economic bias affects his action related to photography. He will lean toward money over art.

A difficulty enters here because unsophisticated others will term his photographic output as art because influential actors in the field of photography insist that photography serves as an art form.

We may extract ourselves from this misleading train of thought by asserting that the visual arts follow their own principles, concepts, standards, rules, and techniques. These measures govern photography, too.

dyximan

Although I appreciate all the bells and whistles to a point. I still enjoy the trek hunt, search if you will for that certain something, perhaps out of the way place or point of view, for that one special shot, capture if you will.