winterrose Loc: Kyneton, Victoria, Australia

I think it's rather amusing to see people here and in other forums posting images which they consider as being "art". They start with a rather ordinary photograph of a rather ordinary subject then they try all sorts of preset "effects" prepared by other people until they come up with something pretty then because they "created" the resulting image, they call it "art". To my mind "art" is something which is manifested firstly in someone's mind and the "artist" must then have the personal ability to create that manifestation into a viewable form.

buckwheat Loc: Clarkdale, AZ and Belen NM

Even though your rant is rather vague, I agree! As Bob Ross would say, (A happy accident) Art happens usually when it is planned!

mtclicker Loc: Montana

winterrose: Myself I figure the art of photography to be an art. But that is just me.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

Sometimes it also helps to be an artist if you suffer from some sort of mental illness. The first six people on this list are photographers; although you may nor recognize the names, they have all made a mark in the field of photography, and this list does not include the many photographers from nineteenth and early twentieth centuries whose minds were affected by the Mercury common in the trade at that time. The remainder are artists in other fields:

Dickson, C.
Hopkins, C.
Keedy, J. W.
Miller, C. A.
Talibart, R.
Walden, M

Darger
Eliot, T S.
Faulkner, William
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Goya
Hemingway, Ernest
Michelangelo
Munch
O'Keeffe, Georgia
Picasso
Van Gogh
Williams, Tennessee

winterrose Loc: Kyneton, Victoria, Australia

To speak or write in an angry or violent manner; to utter or express with violence or extravagance; violent or extravagant speech or writing; a speech or piece of writing that incites anger or violence. Apologies if you see it that way.

Vague? OK I'll try again. To me a photograph is made some time before one raises the camera to one's eye. Art, equally, is created long before the creation is commenced. Some of what I have seen posted about, applying presets to a rather ordinary pic is as much art as if Michelangelo were to create the Mona Lisa in the manner that a child plays with Mister Potato Head.

winterrose Loc: Kyneton, Victoria, Australia

Thank you Mogul, I guess you're saying that I have a very good chance.....

winterrose Loc: Kyneton, Victoria, Australia

I heartily agree with you, that should be obvious, but I see no "art" in applying presets to a photo until eventually something pretty magically emerges, do you?

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

A question, Rob, an honest and sincere question. If someone photographs a nature scene, and, in examining the total scene, dislikes the image in its entirety, but discovers that a part of the image (approximately 25%) near, but not in the top right corner, has the potential to be a better image if cropped and enlarged, but otherwise unedited, is that partial final image art?

winterrose Loc: Kyneton, Victoria, Australia

In the olden times, those we now consider to be pioneers crossed the oceans blue in sailing ships and it took them a year.

They risked life and limb and if they didn't know what they were doing, they forfeited.

In the olden times, photographers had only fixed focus, fixed aperture lenses fitted to wooden boxes and they had trek for miles in the wilderness to take very long exposures and puddle around in chemicals in the dark in order to somehow glean a image from the plate.

When they printed, there was much examination and the making of masks in custom made shapes followed by elaborate rituals of predetermined, timed exposures and the waving about of the masks attached to sticks as the masters of photography dodged and burned in the darkroom.

But wait a minute!

Masters of photography?

What are they doing so tampering with the image they photographed?

That isn't art!

I consider that in this day and age, just as it was back then, a photographic image is created in three stages.

The cognetive stage, whether the prospective image is simply recognized in passing such as during a walk in a garden or at a show or an opportunity is exploited such as at a race or if the image is highly planned at a photo shoot.

The shooting stage when the technical decisions are made such as choice of camera and lens, the setup, lighting, time of day, camera settings and finally composition of the shot.

Then lastly the processing of the captured image.

An accomplished photographer must have a good degree of mastery over each stage. As the completed photograph is affected by any of these cumulative stages, as long as the photographer remains as the creator and manipulator then to my mind the artistry attributed to the image attributes equally to its creator.

So to be concise, yes.

Regards, and thanks for the question.

Rob.
P.S. you didn't say whether or not I have a chance.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

No worries, Rob; you're as sane as I am! We should both be blithering bright photographers. But, let's go out the long way; Hemingway chose much shorter a road than the one I want to travel!

Bruce with a Canon Loc: Islip

It was considered "ART" for an image (maplethorpe) of a crucifix submerged in urine.
It was considered "ART" for an image of the Virgin Mary to decorated with elephant scat.
Some cat, whose name is hardly relevant to bhang sheets of material all over Central Park, NYC.

Thus the definition of art varies widely.
Irrespective what what any one individual might define as art, people are quite free to define it for them selves. IMHO

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

Some will push the bounds of decency to see how far they stretch before they are torn assunder. Once those limits are reached, the result is arcane anarchy or despotic dictatorship. From the end of one civilization, we will have come full circle to a new beginning, the painfully slow rise of the Phoenic from its own ashes.

winterrose Loc: Kyneton, Victoria, Australia

Pheeuw!

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Winter, there are two other types of artists among photographers.
1, is the artist that just can't get composition to save their souls, and in doing so, screw up or blunder. Since these screw-ups are nothing, they declare it as art. As if photography is not an art, but the screw-ups suddenly and miraculously are art.
2, Then there is the photographer, again that can't shoot or compose, so he hides his ineptness behind the fact that they "only shoot to please themselves", no one else.
In both cases they are creating nothing, but are being buoyed by others that they are actually accomplishing something.
What they are accomplishing is rubbish.
Not everybody with a camera will achieve a high degree of skill. It's like any other quantifiable pursuit, once you learn to quantify it, it's pretty obvious.
SS

jonsommer Loc: Usually, somewhere on the U.S. west coast.

You've defined what 'art' isn't (to you), which can endlessly and pedantically be debated here and elsewhere, without resolution, and ultimately, does it matter? Let's hear your definition of what 'art' is.