The other day on my favourite photo critique forum a photographer posted an image which to me seemed like some improvements could be made. Someone else had the same thoughts as I did and beat me to it, but the photog was not happy – he had taken an image in the spirit of an artist he admires and the image was exactly the way he likes it. I congratulated him, gently reminded him that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and then chimed in on the first comment. The photographer responded by announcing that we are only conforming to one ideal and he will take his photography where it’s appreciated and cancelled his registration. This got me thinking that the root of the problem is that photography is a form of art. Our insulted photographer had created a work of art (for better or for worse) and he thought it was great, others didn’t. That is surely not so uncommon with art at all. Not even Mozart or Dali have pieces which are universally admired – there is bound to be someone who doesn’t like them, granted not many, but someone anyway.
Now, curious as it may seem considering that I am a photographer, I always laugh when I should think myself as an artist. Art as a term is widely open to definition – and opinion. I don’t like things that I need to interpret. I don’t like things where there is no right and wrong – everyone’s opinion is valid when art is concerned, it doesn’t matter what the opinion is. I prefer things which can be clearly defined, so I use my pictures to chop the chaotic world around me into manageable chunks and what remains after the treatment I give to my subjects has very little room for interpretation. And I guess that somewhere there lies my problem… often when I post my images to the forums, I don’t get many responses. I have come to the conclusion that it’s better to get 10 comments which point out a mistake in my photo, than no comments at all. No comments to me means that there is no obvious mistake in the photo (great!) but it also means I must have done something wrong because the photo doesn’t evoke any reaction at all (not so great). The problem is, when no one tells you where it went wrong, then you can’t fix it either. At least the offended photog from the forum got some comments – they just weren’t what he wanted to hear.
If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen – exactly what he did.
It’s art, man… Get over it!