thomas_barbey

On the fact that is this photography or not?

There is an artist named Maggie Taylor who is listed as a photographer all over the Web. She uses a flatbed scanner and makes composites from old images she finds sometimes at the Flea Markets. She is not considered by anybody as a collage artist but as a photographer. Frankly, anybody can call themselves anything they want in this crazy world. If somebody will pay 23.5 million dollars for a sculpture by Jeff Koons who is still alive and kicking today, what more proof do we need, that everything in this world goes... In the case of Jeff koons, even marrying a pornstar, goes... Actually this fact may be of more importance to the buyer, than the actual art itself. The buyer was more concerned about the investment and maybe he was showing off in front of a "trophy" wife. Who really cares about the actual work of Art? You have to enter the mind of a billionaire who made his money selling steel and wants to impress people at parties. This sale made front page news and it's a stroke for the ego of the person who bought the piece.

Luciano, keep doing photos like this one and you will have defined a new style. That's what Maggie Taylor has, that so many photographers don't understand. Instead, they all copy each other and are all over the place.

If you're too good technically at every different style, it will be your downfall if you want to be an artist.

This is the difference between an artist who has a vision and something to say versus "children" playing around with a camera like chicken running around with their heads cut off. For Joel Peter Witkin to do landscape photography would be a total waste of time. Can he do it? Probably. Will he? Of course not, because he has a vision and something to say. He's a leader and not a follower. That's what an artist is.

Now if your goal is to be a commercial photographer or a wedding photographer, then it's a different story. You may want to be able to do everything to please your customer. This is not what Joel Peter Witkin is looking to do or any true artist for that matter.

I've been looking at Photo.net and the large majority are people just having fun. When you see a portfolio with butterflies and flowers in color and portraits in Black and White you realize the photographer has no direction and no style. When a photographer does landscape and I can't tell the difference between his picture and the gazillion other landscape pictures out there, as far as the Art world is concerned, it's a waste of time. The guy is still having a ton of fun but he's going nowhere. The whole concept of a critique of a work of Art is silly because the true artist isn't doing it to please a customer. This is the job of a commercial photographer.

I used to shoot Fashion in color in the 80's. That's how I started and learned the technical stuff. Do I have some cool shots? Certainly. Are they appropriate for the Art market? No. Today, I only do Black and White photo-montages and my vision is very clear. I don't go messing around in other peoples territory. This is why people will pay thousands of dollars for one of my pieces. People want to know who and what they are buying.

The most difficult thing for an artist is to throw the junk away. The images that don't fit with your body of work. It can be a great shot, but if it doesn't go with your style, it becomes "junk". Keep it to yourself and don't associate it with your name.

Luciano. If this is the direction you want to go in, then go. You can call it photography if you want to, but please don't put it in a portfolio with "cute" pictures of a cat or something else that doesn't fit, because then it would become "junk" and nobody can take you seriously.