Do you consider yourself an Artist or a Photographer

[john_resner]

<i>Moderator note: Thread closed due to repeated trolling by OP under various aliases in this discussion. Refuses to accept photo.net guidelines for participation.</i><br>

<hr>

<p>I just wondered how others feel about this because many Art Galleries and exhibitions separate the two. I understand that some pictures are just pictures but to me many parts of photography are very much Art. I have to say it really gets too me when we aren't put in the Artist category.</p>

[geoffs1]

<p>Both.</p>

<p>(bit maybe not at the same time always...)</p>

[joannahaha]

<p>I am very much an artist with a camera. I get constantly critiqued about not being technically correct and try and apply all these rules to my work. I just laugh and ignore. I am hardly ever out of work and am hired for my originality and uniqueness. It does get tiresome having to explain my way of working to an anal tog who shoots kingfisher for a living with photoshop as a back up!</p>

[swilson]

<p>

<p>I consider my self to be a photographer. I am looking to capture the feel for a place and time and whereas I try to give some eye to composition a photograph that is only a work of art is not something that I personally am interested in capturing. A good example of the kind of photo I am not going to go after is a spiral staircase shot at some odd angle to show interesting curves. I have no problems with others going after this kind of photo but it is not my thing. </p>

<p>That is the great thing about photography, it can be many different things to different people.</p>

</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>I'm a snapper.</p>

[andylynn]

<p>What do you mean, "or"? :)</p>

[john_resner]

<p>Great responses, love the passion in all the feedback.</p>

[jeremy jackson]

<p>Hmmmm! Some interesting ideas - Joanne. Me thinks she protests too much.</p>

<p>So is Wynton Marsalis any less of an artist because he cares about technical perfection? Maybe that makes him MORE of an artist?</p>

<p>There are always people out there that will buy something because it's different. But I wonder, is being different enough to call work artistic? I suppose this is how some of the modern art we see gets appreciated - it's just different. No-one has ever hung a dead rat on a string, painted it yellow and nailed it to a canvas before. Does that make it art?</p>

<p>I think great art has a combination of both uniqueness/creativity and technical competence. When both come together, that's when we have something truly special. And when they do come together, photography is art, no question IMO. Cheers, JJ</p>

<p>PS. Joanne, there are people on this site that shoot Kingfisher's for a living (if that's what you meant). Do you want to retract your rude comment? Or did you really want to insult them all?</p>

<p> </p>

[brucecahn]

<p>I am a sasquatch, dressed for modern civilization.</p>

[brucecahn]

<p>Wynton is less of an artist because he represents a tradition rather than being a creator of it.</p>

[stp]

<p>The person who hangs a dead rat on a string, paints it yellow, and nails it to a canvas is an artist. When I take a photograph of a dead, yellow-painted rat nailed to a canvas, that makes me a...... hhmmm, I'm not sure.</p>

<p>I photograph landscapes primarily. Some of my landscape photographs are fairly abstract, and some digital manipulations can produce an image that the human eye has never seen. So what does that make me? "Artist" and "photographer" are just words, and they have different meanings and nuances to different people. I really don't feel the need to pigeon-hole myself. I do what I do and enjoy it immensely.</p>

[john_a5]

<p>Galleries and other Exhibition spaces will use the term photographer because it clarifies the medium not whether the person is an artist or not. That is a pretty moot point these days. We might notice it more, but pay attention to the monikers of printmaker, sculpture, painting etc in the description of a show. About the only time art is used is when it is a show including many media or in terms of meeting the artist. </p>

<p>Beyond that, does it matter? You do what you do and you are what you are...</p>

[mikael_karlsson]

<p>Photographer, about as "blue-collar" as it gets...</p>

[joannahaha]

<p>Sorry not insulting any Kingfisher photographers at all. JJ seems to think I am. It was a metaphor. But I will retract.<br>

I think your " protest too much " comment should be retraced though, you don't know me? </p>

[www.philwinterphotography.]

<p>About 90% photographer and 10% artist. Photography is mostly a skill that can be learned with enough training and practice - like playing a musical instrument. Artistry, to some extent, is as well. I "see" photographs that most people miss. This isn't because I'm some kind of prodigy, but rather, I've learned to see light the way the camera does. I may create what some term "art" so I guess that makes me an artist, but not in the same sense that many paint artists are.</p>

[wogears]

<p><strong>Joanne: </strong></p>

<p>From the OED, v.4<strong>:<br /> </strong></p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>tog, n.1 slang or colloq.<br /> <br /> (tɒg) <br /> <br /> Usually pl. togs. <br /> <br /> [app. a shortening of togeman(s, togman, used in Vagabonds' Cant as early as the 16th c. Its currency in the 19th c. was no doubt aided by its obvious connexion with toga; cf. toge.] <br /> <br /> 1.1 Cant and slang. A coat; any outer garment; see also quot. 1809. <br /> <br /> 1708 Memoirs Right Villanous John Hall (ed. 4) 10/2 Togge, a Coat. 1718 C. Hitching Regulator 20 The names of the flash words now in vogue among thieves.‥ Togge, alias Coat. 1755 J. Potts Jrnl. in R. Price Howling Arctic (1970) i. 16 Having no beaver coats in the factory to make their togs, mittens nor caps. 1798 Tuft Gloss. Thieves' Jargon (Cent. D.), Long tog, a coat. 1809 G. Andrewes Dict. Slang & Cant, Tatty togg, a gaming cloth. 1812 J. H. Vaux Flash Dict., Tog, a coat. 1821 Sporting Mag. IX. 27 Curtis, in a new white upper tog. 1911 19th Cent. Sept. 548 A tog and kicks is synonymous with a coat and breeches.</p>

<p>tog, n.2 dial.<br /> <br /> (tɒg) <br /> <br /> Local variant of teg, perh. influenced by hog. <br /> <br /> 1851 Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. XII. ii. 333 A lamb eight or nine months old, and until his first shearing, is called a ‘heder’ or ‘sheder’, ‘hog’, ‘hogget’, or ‘lamb-hog’. In other counties a ‘teg’, ‘tog’, ‘gimmer’, and ‘dinmont’, &c.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Can't figure out what a 'tog' is in this context. In my experience, camera clubs tend to emphasize rules and technical perfection. It's just What They Do.</p>

<p>Checked out your portfolio. You take some of the sexiest pictures I've ever seen. The work speaks for itself; no need to engage in the beating up of Straw Persons.</p>

<p>Les</p>

 

[sarah_fox]

<p>Because most people don't understand my brilliant artwork enough to buy it I must therefore turn to other aspects of photography (which can still be creative, original, and unique, and yet not artistic). :-P~~~~</p>

<p>Seriously.... both. As is often the case, artwork is what we do mostly for ourselves, and what I call "service photography" is what we do mostly for others.</p>

<p>BTW, our cat and dog agree the dead yellow rat idea needs to be done! I think the title should be "Ode to an Anal Tog." (All in fun.)</p>

[jay a. frew]

<p>"...to an anal tog who shoots kingfisher for a living with photoshop as a back up!"</p>

<p>That is sure to earn the respect of like-minded artists.</p>

<p>Cheers! Jay</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>I'm a snapper with a few occasional fine art pretensions. It's not up to me to decide whether it has artistic merit. Someone else can worry about that.</p>

[Mary Doo]

<p>A photographer of course. "Art" is broad, general, and unspecific: the art of living, the art of cooking, the art of salesmanship, the art of whatever... LOL!</p>

[jeremy jackson]

<p>Joanne, thanks for that. I'll retract as well.</p>

<p>John R, in some cases I take an artistic approach to my subject, in others I don't. I use a camera. Therefore I'm both. JJ</p>

<p> </p>

[JDMvW]

<blockquote>

<p>Come on guys, the first six comments were great and all looked sincere. Please lets not respond about what you think others meant or try to pick apart the post. I think it would be awesome to here about you,not references about other artists or photographers.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>There are always some who simply do not understand that neither the OP or others control what kinds of responses you get, or don't get. Only the moderators, in their great wisdom, get to do that. (In fact, the thread is I see right now is so disjointed that I suspect the moderator <strong><em>has</em> </strong> stepped in).</p>

<p>In any case, the irony is that the plea above is exactly about "what you think others meant or try to pick apart the post" -- the very thing it decries and indeed "picks apart" everything after the first six posts.</p>

<p>I can't see much above that is far out of line here. It's not as though somebody said "this is a post that belongs on the Philosophy of Photography forums and a pee-wit should have seen that."</p>

[keith selmes]

<p>Do I consider myself an Artist or a Photographer ? ..... Both.</p>

<p>Do I consider myself an Artist or a Computerist ?........ Both.</p>

<p>Do I consider myself an Artist or a Painter ? .............. Painter!<br>

I only paint doors and window frames, and that not very well - they are no works of art.</p>

[mikeoday]

<p>My immediate response is that: with a few minor exceptions, all photographers are artists.</p>

<p>But then I suppose the question for me has more to do with semantics than a simple classification - it all comes down to one's personal definition of art.</p>

<p>For me ‘art’ is more in the process than in the result.</p>

<p>If a person makes choices of an aesthetic nature when creating a work then for me they are an artist. Photography is all about such choices; so from my perspective, all of us are artists. (The only exceptions that immediately come to mind would be someone using a camera to copy something without exercising any aesthetic choices. For example, an archivist using a camera to digitise old tax records!)</p>

<p>I believe that rather than speaking of ‘artist’ or ‘photographer’, a more substantive conversation can be had by applying qualifiers such as talented, gifted, original or maybe even struggling ( like me :) ).</p>

<p>Certainly one can debate the artistic merit of every photograph but that’s my point really; to be able to debate the artistic merit of a baby snap that only their mum could like one first has to accept that it is art.</p>

<p>So to answer the question: when I’m taking photographs I’m an artist, not necessarily a gifted or particularly original one but an artist none the less.</p>

[paf iii]

<p>Uncle Bob</p>