[Leica] Photos and Art

[Mike Johnston <70007.3477@compuserve.com>]

Very many interesting responses and additions to my post, many of which I can
do nothing but agree with, and/or learn from.

To Tom K., I would quote John Sz.'s "There are more photographs in the world
that bricks." Most photographs are poor by anyone's definition. The photographs
that people consider "artistic" or publishable or somehow worthy of public
attention are a tiny, tiny subset of all the photographs made. 

Most people think photographs are decor, and the photographs they like are the
photographic equivalent of the drek foisted on the public at "starving artists"
oil painting sales to be held soon at a big exurban chain hotel near you, where
you can buy a nice mass-produced seascape for $39, MARKED DOWN from $59! Such a
deal. <s>

If you think most photographs are _really_ heartfelt art and that it's only the
elitist esotericism of sophisticates that prevent it from being recognized  as
such, all I can say is you just haven't had to sit through enough portfolio
reviews. <g> This ain't rocket science. Look at enough photographs, and the
trends become clear. (If I ever have to go to hell, I'll have to sit and look
at amateur snapshots of flowers and sunsets all day.) 

To Jim Brick, I don't have much to add; it simply seems to me that you have
thought long and hard about photographs and art. In the terms I set out in my
original post, I'll bet you are easily within the last 5% of the population,
Sir. <s> You know your mind. You and I may have differences aplenty, but no
quarrel that I can see.

And my parting shot:

Personally, I don't think photographs are art and I don't think photographers
are artists. One of the more interesting phenomena of recent years--one that
has gone utterly unremarked upon--is that no sooner did photography become
accepted as "art" in museums and galleries, than museums and galleries began
showing photography that is completely divorced from practical or authentic
photography. The "photographers" who are shown in museums are generally not
working pros or photojournalists or portraitists or documentary photographers;
in many cases, they're not people who would otherwise exist without the
institutions they feed and that feed them. In fact, what the museums show,
largely, are merely artists who incorporate photography into their conceptual
toolkit, rather than real photographers who make it their business to make
photographs. There are exceptions to this, but it seems largely true.

I'm with David Vestal. I'd rather be called a "photographer" than an "artist"
any day.

- --Mike