Billyspad Loc: The Philippines

min min I protest cos I post snaps I have played with in Photoshop lol

I will concede to your artistic intent and tell ya its a fine picture but its not art. What you saw and what you felt cannot be captured by that
ol' Olympus you lug around. You captured reality devoid of feeling simply cos a sensor does not and very rarely conveys feelings.

Anyway its time for my power nap! Please keep anybody away fom me who is daft enough to declare "well I think I am an artist" lol
Love ya min and you deserve the accolade of photographer along side Toby Jim the Photographer and a few others. But artist no so be happy doing what you do incredibly well. You gal need no further titles.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

We both know I'm not in league with those guys but I'll take any concession I can get from Mr. Anti-Art :D

After your nap go fix us up some more art featuring animals prowling the streets and skies keeping watch for the miscreants of the world.

Billyspad Loc: The Philippines

Went into space after my nap min. Nearly 5 hours in the Billycave. Just posted it. May take the animals into space next as my "artistic side" is getting all terrestrial lol.

jenny Loc: in hiding:)

* * * * *
Power naps to put the brain in neutral gear, to realize need for mini vacation to gain perspective, Billy constantly tells the truth and questions it as well, as doing so keeps others on their toes.
Now if some deserve the accolade of photographer but not artist, then what is the difference? It is not what the photographer thinks him or herself to be but is defined by others.
To photograph what is before the lens does not make one an artist. And here I give the best example that comes to mind:
When visiting a family-owned art supply store with its separate framing section and separate gallery section in an area large enough for group meetings, I stopped for a moment to see a really enlarged photograph of a cold winter stream with new snowfall on the rocks. One of the owner-worker clan asked me whether I liked it. I said it was okay. She thought it was "creative". I said it wasn't.
She asked why. I said because it was nothing more than taking a picture of just what was in front of the lens.

This person, who was surrounded by art supplies every day, and people interested in art of all sorts, suddenly assumed a most confusing and blank troubled expression. Had she ever heard the term "record shot"? Did she think that was the whole definition of photography...whatever is in front of the lens? And what other description could there be anyway?
Since the subject of this picture happened to be a landscape, let's consider that no matter what season of the year it is, what weather condition exists, what time of day or night it may be, when pointing a lens at it,what did the
photographer do but record the fact the scene was "created" already, was merely THERE. Any "creative" interpretation of the scene was totally lacking.

Maybe one of the best ways to find more than a record shot with a digital camera is to slow down, maybe lock up all but one lens, preferably a prime lens, then learn what it will do beyond a record shot.
But to ask,"What is art?", is to flounder around through volumes and definitions enough to choke a few philosophers, art critics, photographers and artists for the rest of one's life perhaps unless determined to sift this information enough to finally define what the world generally considers it to be, not what we wish, but what is recognized by some standards.

jim hill Loc: Springfield, IL

As my old buddy Sun Tzu said, every human endeavor can be art - even War.

Billyspad Loc: The Philippines

Endeavour or indeed intent does not make art. Art can be the result.
But very rarely with a camera.

jim hill Loc: Springfield, IL

Depends on who you ask of whom.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

That bit is absolutely true... of EVERY scene no matter how it is photographed.

But that is also what makes the photograph, no matter how it is done, a work of art. The scene was there, the photograph is HERE. And here can be hanging on my wall where that scene can never be. That makes it, without any other attribute, a fantastic bit of art.


That doesn't make it art. Doesn't even make it "better" art. It's irrelevant to the discussion.


True! But there are easy ways to avoid floundering. Ask Picasso! His answer to what is art, was "What isn't?". He nailed it.

Virtually every "record shot" is art. Twenty thousand images from an archaeological dig are art, every single one of them, because they can be shown on a auditorium screen to an entire group of scientists, students, and others interested in what cannot be here but was there.

Billyspad Loc: The Philippines

Well thats settled that little problem then! Apaflo has spoken backed it up with a quote gleaned from the net so we can all go home now lol.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Jim, Jenny, Floyd, Billy
Thanks for these interesting comments! This is exactly the kind of friendly "argument" I was hoping would happen! All viewpoints are welcome; though we all know there can never be a consensus, the sharing of ideas is worthwhile in and of itself.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Certainly worth of debate among open-minded participants.


Wish we could ask him. Maybe he said it to you personally but, from everywhere that he spoke or wrote about art, I never encountered that phrase or sentiment.

Can you cite a book, interview or source? Did you paraphrase something else that he said?

Piccaso is not mentioned at http://www.whatisntart.com/ How did they miss it?


I don't think that everyone agrees with him, even Piccaso.

The good news is that Floyd's answer pretty much excuses him from any further participation in this debate.

I suggest that at least some photography is not and was never intended to be art - X-rays of someone's teeth, pictures from a colonoscopy, top-secret images of military installations - I'll bet you could add more.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

Please, at least, use accurately pertinent examples in this discussion if maintaining a pretense of the significance thereof. "X-Rays" (radiographs) of teeth or bones or other components of one's "innerds" are not and never have been photographs. Light/ photons play no role in their production although, indeed, photographic renderings of radiographic images can be made. Electronmicrographic images, computer assisted tomographic (CAT) scans, sonographic scans, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) fall under the same "non-photographic" imaging rubric. These diagnostic modalities are, however, media that are nonce necessities in the practice of the art and science of modern medicine.
Dave

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Is it really worth quibbling over the details. It ends up as an image on film or a recorded by sensor and you can print it. I think you got the gist of what I meant.

The real question is, does that make it art?

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

The experience of having dug, scraped, brushed and otherwise disclosed a variety of artifacts in archaeological digs has helped to refine my personal definition of art. Some artifacts are/ were purely utilitarian - knapped hand axes, projectile points, scrapers, etc... Some however, were, clearly, produced with a degree of finish and design that transcended their mere utility. They were given a pattern of flaking and/or a smoothed, ground finish that served solely to satisfy the esthetic of the maker, not the item's utility to its user. That, I found, to be my personal touchstone in differentiating art from mere utility -that the item be clearly fashioned in some way that rewards the esthetic impulse of the maker. It need satisfy no one else's esthetic to be art. And so, some of those artifacts I found and and catalogued may have been art without my knowing it. In the end, I don't worry about it; perhaps it wasn't intended to be any of my concern anyway? If it satisfied the artist, who am I to judge?

Further, having photographed, in a documentary fashion, many such artifacts, I can't consider those photographs to be art; they serve the pure utilitarian function of documentation.

Dave

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

My apologies for citing something beyond meager research capability. But, well, it is all over the Internet! Not hard to find references to it, though it might well be past what you are able to actually source.

Spanish sculptor Jorge Oteiza is the original source, in his 1963 book entitled "Quosque tandem" (which of course is in Spanish, so every reference seen in English is a "paraphrase"). The more direct source for what is on the Internet is probably a PHD thesis quoting Oteiza, by Juan Arana Cobos at the University of Nevada, Reno published in 2008.