No. My position is that photography, which can indeed be a wonderful and excellent thing, is not actually an art form per se. A photographer can be more accurately said to "document" something by showing the audience exactly what was there (when well done, he does this using some of the same techniques that an artist might such as composition, selecting contrast levels, etc.) rather than recreating what was there in light of an expressive goal which allows a great deal of freedom to adjust what is there and how it looks which is unavailable to the photographer. That being the case, since the goals of a photographer and an artist are different (one being to document what is there and the other to express an idea effectively) they should be judged by different standards. I hate to repeat myself, but my position on this seems to be consistently misunderstood. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with photography. Photography is a wonderful thing. It's just not the same kind of thing as art is, that's all.
What about photography, isn't that art?
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No. My position is that photography, which can indeed be a wonderful and excellent thing, is not actually an art form per se. A photographer can be more accurately said to "document" something by showing the audience exactly what was there (when well done, he does this using some of the same techniques that an artist might such as composition, selecting contrast levels, etc.) rather than recreating what was there in light of an expressive goal which allows a great deal of freedom to adjust what is there and how it looks which is unavailable to the photographer. That being the case, since the goals of a photographer and an artist are different (one being to document what is there and the other to express an idea effectively) they should be judged by different standards. I hate to repeat myself, but my position on this seems to be consistently misunderstood. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with photography. Photography is a wonderful thing. It's just not the same kind of thing as art is, that's all.
