Comments on: 10 Reasons Why Photography Sucks and Isn’t an Art Form

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:47:49 +0000

Through reading the comments it’s apparent to me that photographers and traditional artists alike see paintings and drawing and sketching as art. Yet virtually no traditional artists see photography as art while all photographers do. My conclusion is that the best photographers need to separate themselves from 99.9% of other (photographers) or try and purge your medium of the pop culture morons. I can buy a very expensive technically brilliant paintbrush, spend countless hours working on pieces and have a fundemntal understanding of art but that doesn’t mean everything if anything i create is art.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:35:54 +0000

Kind of understand. However the skills involved include patience, concept generation and art direction plus the action of clicking a button. These actions bar clicking a button all occur before a traditional artist creates their piece. They are by no means finished. Oh and your ignorance is apparent when you talk of working in a dark room. As if a few hours working in the correct lighting is such a burden. Try doing it for weeks, months or years for one piece. Understand that touching the paper you use once will compromise the entire pieces finished quality. Even using graphite pencils you cannot simply erase your mistakes.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:27:18 +0000

You will never understand art then. I don’t call myself an artist, yet I spend hours on concepts, gathering references and creating the piece itself. (Free-hand traditional portrait drawings in graphite). I have science qualifications at school level, does that make me a scientist? The point is how many photo’s can you take in one hour…thousands. Even without all of the specialist equipment, lighting etc by sheer luck you will come out with some very good photographs. Are those good photos classified as art… Their is a huge difference between a child picking up a pencil and drawing and the masterpieces created by the great artists. Yet can a child or monkey use a camera and take photos of similar quality to a photographer…Yes.

By: Angela

Angela — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:48:10 +0000

Oh and “Sunday photographers?”
I have my camera at ALL times.
I am in photography school that requires 14-15 hour days Monday-friday. Film, Digital, Darkroom, color & B&W Ag process printing. All of it.
Do NOT talk to me about a “hobby.”
Photography is my life and I am in it for MY ART.
And for the record:
“Something planned, thought of, modified, retried, will show the work and effort involved” -you
I have reshot the same scene 5 different times in 4 different formats (35mm, 6×6, 4×5, digital) to achieve EXACTLY the look I wanted. Then fricking perfected for HOURS in a darkroom.
PLANNED, THOUGHT OF, MODIFIED, AND RETRIED.
STOP pontificating!
You are not better than me, or anyone else, just because you think you KNOW what “art” is or isn’t.
NO “art” is better than any other, it’s SELF-EXPRESSION, and therefore NOT for people to judge and compare, it’s for the ARTIST to express something and to share it if they so chose.

So for all those painters or sculptors or whatever you do, who have decided photography isn’t art because its “easy” and is just copying nature, I’d like to see you pick up a camera and produce CONSISTENTLY beautiful results, because true photographers can. EVERY time.

By: Angela

Angela — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:18:35 +0000

And by the way:
“Rule of Thumb” is a phrase that was used when beating your wife was legal, as long as you did it with a stick smaller in diameter than your thumb.
Let’s try not to sound like small-minded bigots, shall we?

By: Angela

Angela — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:14:42 +0000

“Minimal art is characterized by its simplicity in both form and content, where personal expression is removed in order to achieve this. The intention of minimalist artists is to allow the audience to view a composition more intensely because the distractions of theme etc. have been removed.”

That is a direct definition.
That’s “art” even though “personal expression is removed.”
So go bash them.

By: Angela

Angela — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:11:27 +0000

break* ah dang.

By: Angela

Angela — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:09:44 +0000

DON’T you see?
That’s the difference between REAL photographers and amateurs, what real photographers can achieve, is REPEATABLE.

We know what we are doing. We can do it once, and then 10 years later do it again and if we chose we can even improve upon it.
The amateurs out there can point a camera at something and get a photograph, yes.
They may even get lucky once or twice, but they have NO idea how they got the results they did.

TRUE photographers can not only achieve the same result, but can then brake it down and explain it to you.
We understand light, we can shape it, manipulate it, make it ours.
Can ANY of you say the same?

By: Spyanlord

Spyanlord — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:33:21 +0000

People are so used to living in a world that over simplifies everything that most of them are incapable of making any efforts. Nowadays, the majority of things are built quickly, thoughtlessly and carelessly, and the result most often then not shows that lack of effort and investment, in other words it SUCKS. It pisses me off to see that mentality invade artistic expression, and lame sunday photographer “artists” really crystalize this “trend”. “Who says is has to be hard?
Who says it needs to take years?” : that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Rule of thumbs : something thought of and executed in an hour will always be mediocre. Something planned, thought of, modified, retried, will show the work and effort involved, and that’s a pretty certain way of defining quality. The best artistic expression takes time and dedication, and there has to be some kind of hardship otherwise it just falls in the amateur category. If you don’t realize the work and investment art requires, than stop making art because you don’t know anything about it. And avoid another terrible mistake that seperates real art from posers trying to get attention : never do art for other people’s praises, do it for yourself. The moment you aim to please or impress the public, you aren’t doing art anymore, you’re doing marketting. Artistic expression is personal and should not be done to make views on youtube, it’s a cathartic operation meant to externalise something you can’t externalise in any other way. This, work and dedication are the only things that drive true art.

By: Angela

Angela — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:50:07 +0000

NO, the difference is the artists’ chosen medium.
The artists’ desired form of expression, their outlet.

And if you have never spent hours in a darkroom, dodging this shadow or burning this highlight, to make the image exactly right, then you don’t get it, so don’t pretend to know what goes into it. WE DON’T JUST CLICK A FUCKING BUTTON!

Tell that to Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, Annie Leibovitz, Sam Abell, or even Rodney Smith.
I dare you to say that they’re not artists.

You’re mad at the same people TRUE photographers are mad at. The ones who buy “point and shoots,” or DSLRs at walmart and decide they can do what we do.