What Validates You as an Artist

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18829703
This idea that what medium one uses to create something determines whether it is art or not ..... that's hogwash.

I am not sure what's up with that but I seem to agree to everything what Tom writes. I also like the choice of words here, very eloquent.

Tom, I've never seen such tactless wording from you before:

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18829703
hogwash . . . extremely narrow minded idea . . . not only sad, but incorrect

I agree with your message, though. The "line" between art and craft is really a wide band and can't be used to make an absolute distinction.

OhLook wrote in post #18829722
The "line" between art and craft is really a wide band and can't be used to make an absolute distinction.

There's a pretty clear delineation, at least in my mind, in where photography is an art, or a craft.

At times photography is very much a creative process. To Tom's point earlier, its about taking a scene that exists in the mind's eye of the photographer and creating something that can be drastically different than what a scene truly looked like. This is something that took me a while to really embrace TBH, as I often viewed photography as a purely technical process..."getting the settings right" and "fixing stuff in post". But I now have a great appreciation for creative process of taking a photograph. I'm literally creating the feeling of a scene as it existed in my mind.

But there are times where photography is simply a technical process...a craft. Sometimes out of necessity. i.e. with photojournalism, the photographer has to have a very narrow artistic license as they should not be influencing the story being told by the scene too heavily. I don't consider myself a photojournalist, but this is something I'm cognizant of when it comes to the documentary parts of photographing a wedding.

mystik610 wrote in post #18829729
There's a pretty clear delineation, at least in my mind, in where photography is an art, or a craft.

At times photography is very much a creative process. To Tom's point earlier, its about taking a scene that exists in the mind's eye of the photographer and creating something that can be drastically different than what a scene truly looked like.

The phase of the enterprise that feels creative to me is different. I don't walk around with a preformed scene in my mind's eye and scout for some reality that matches it (and is this even what you and Tom are talking about?). Instead, I walk around just looking, but in a receptive way. On lucky days, something in my visual field offers the promise of an interesting or well-composed image. Then I try to exploit its potential by deciding on framing, where to stand/sit/squat/lie, and so on.

The distinction I want to challenge is the traditional one between "high art" and "a mere craft." You know, like this: oil painting is an art, basket weaving is a craft. There can be crummy oil paintings and artistically designed baskets. For classifying an image as art or not, film versus digital doesn't cut it.

Yes, many times the main goal is to document something.

“What Validates You as an Artist?”

I think the OP has given us an interesting question. Thanks! The whole weary discussion of what is art and what is not art or who’s an artist and who is not leaves me dead cold, but SeattleSpeedster points us in a much better direction.

For me validation is mostly personal. It comes while working away at something and all of a sudden saying, “Hey, that’s not bad,” or, even better, looking at completed work done a while ago and saying still saying, “That’s not bad.”

The satisfaction of seeing my work on the wall of a home or business, in print or featured electronically tends to be mild. I do create art but am not anything approaching a great artist. Once released into the world with a universe of wonderful stuff mine fades almost into nothingness in comparison.

It’s much the same with the opinion of others. It’s always nice to hear positive comments but it’s just nice rather than validating. Other people do matter and their opinions count but they do not change who I am.

I am an artist because I produce art. Full stop.

I believe photography can be art, and on some level I aspire for my photos to be considered art. But I don't self identify as an artist, mainly because most photographers I've met who proclaim themselves artists are self important schmucks who are more about pretense than quality. So I get my validation from achieving my goals for a certain image and hope that its seen that way by others.

OhLook wrote in post #18829739
The phase of the enterprise that feels creative to me is different. I don't walk around with a preformed scene in my mind's eye and scout for some reality that matches it (and is this even what you and Tom are talking about?). Instead, I walk around just looking, but in a receptive way. On lucky days, something in my visual field offers the promise of an interesting or well-composed image. Then I try to exploit its potential by deciding on framing, where to stand/sit/squat/lie, and so on.

I don't think its a matter of walking around with a preformed scene in your mind's eye, but rather its a matter of actively trying to perceive things as more than what we're seeing with our bare eyes.. There's an art to simply "seeing" a scene's potential.....when we speak of a photographer having a good eye, that's what we're talking about. From there comes the creative process of taking a raw scene and through compositional techniques and post processing bringing that mental image to life....or in your words, exploiting a scene's potential. That whole process of seeing and creating something new/different out of a scene is what I'd consider art, as the photographer is expressing his/her interpretation of a scene.

I think we're basically on the same page

All of that said, I'm a technician at heart, but really am striving to work on the artistic side of photography. I really envy those who have a natural eye for seeing and creating something great out of the mundane. I say all of this because I know its something I need to work on.

OhLook wrote in post #18829739
The distinction I want to challenge is the traditional one between "high art" and "a mere craft." You know, like this: oil painting is an art, basket weaving is a craft. There can be crummy oil paintings and artistically designed baskets. For classifying an image as art or not, film versus digital doesn't cut it.

Yes, many times the main goal is to document something.

How good or bad something is from a technical standpoint isn't what makes it art IMO....its again a matter of self-expression vs simply executing on something.

i.e. I see more artistic value in the crude little crayon drawings that my younger kids make than watching my eldest son nail a piano recital. Why? Because those crude little crayon drawings are the purest form of self expression you can get....they're literally transcribing something in their heads without a point of reference to influence them. My eldest son nailing his piano recital might have done everything correct from a technical standpoint, but I don't really see it as a form of self-expression....it's simply a matter of mastering the muscle memory and technique involved with playing a piece correctly as it was composed.

mystik610 wrote in post #18829845
I don't think its a matter of walking around with a preformed scene in your mind's eye, but rather its a matter of actively trying to perceive things as more than what we're seeing with our bare eyes.. There's an art to simply "seeing" a scene's potential.....when we speak of a photographer having a good eye, that's what we're talking about. . . .
I think we're basically on the same page

It sounds like it now, thanks.

Creative seeing, I suspect, is something like a meditative state. Mental activity at those times seems different from what works for ordinary tasks.

Here's a few words from a couple of the greats and I would say that these photographers did create art.

"I start with no preconceived idea - discovery excites me to focus - then rediscovery through the lens" Edward Weston

"The state of mind of a photographer while creating is a blank...For those who would equate "blank" with a kind of static emptiness, I must explain that this is a special kind of blank. It is a very active state of mind really, a very receptive state of mind, ready at an instant to grasp an image, yet with no image pre-formed in it at any time. We should note that the lack of a pre-formed pattern or preconceived idea of how anything ought to look is essential to this blank condition." Minor White

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18829703
This idea that what medium one uses to create something determines whether it is art or not ..... that's hogwash.

Any medium, tools, materials, and methods can be used to create works of art - true art.

You seem to have an extremely narrow minded idea of what qualifies as art. That is not only sad, but incorrect. Mindsets like that limit creativity and discourage people.

Couldn't care less what you think about my definition of art. You are nobody to judge me on this. Nothing, just some lines on forum page.

I like to go to museums and art galleries.
Plenty of art from all kind of materials.
In museum of Lenin in Moscow they had Lienin's portrait from seeds.

kf095 wrote in post #18829698
You are the only photographer with digital camera I'm considering to buy the book from, of.

You should pick one up bro.

OhLook wrote in post #18829857
. . . Creative seeing, I suspect, is something like a meditative state. Mental activity at those times seems different from what works for ordinary tasks.

Oh yes, at least for me. Starting a creative project at night is a near guarantee of the sunrise peeking through the windows.

I know of artists who once the paint tubes are open on the tablet pen is in hand the project just flows. My guess is they have been multitasking in the background and have enough experience, hard won skill and raw talent that the vision directly finds its way to canvas or screen.

Hi, Kt095.

Your response puzzles me. I think Tom was questioning not your art but your definition of art.

You wrote. "Photography is not art. It is photography."

Is there some way in which pixels that began life in a camera cannot become art? I think we agree that painted oils and manipulated clay can be art. Why not pixels?

For me, a photo straight out of the camera can be art. That doesn't seem to happen with my particular cameras, but the pixels sometimes lead themselves to manipulation into what seems to me good/bad/mediocre art.

If, for example, Café Terrace at Night had not been painted by Vincent van Gogh but rather by a random striver who visited the Place du Forum in Arles, used her cell phone camera and took it from there, would the result not be art?

Is the Richard Avedon portrait of Katharine Hepburn not art because it required only basic photo darkroom skills?

kf095 wrote in post #18829694
Photography is not art. It is photography.
My title was computer graphic artist in English, in another languages it has nothing to do with art.
My computer graphics went to tens of millions auditorium broadcasts, but I still didn't call my self as an artist.

One commercial painter paints the side of buildings - not art. So by your logic none of the old masters paintings are art. Any creative process can be used commercially - music, writing, painting, drawing, photography, etc. That doesn't mean that none of the art created using these methods is art. Sorry, that is just a bizarre idea.

Art comes from intent.... not the medium used to produce it.

I believe an artist creates because he/she has to. Not to create art but just to create. That creation may then be art but just because someone intends it to be will not make it so. The majority of my friends are creative. Photographers, painters, writers and I don't know one that says today I'm going to create art. They just create. I love this quote by Steichen "Art for art’s sake is dead, if it ever lived." Edward Steichen

I do believe that art can be created by any medium. I have seen art created by cameras. I have read art written by writers. I have listen to art created by composers and musicians. I have seen paintings that are art. I have seen art from all kinds of different art forms and mediums.

I don't think many really creative people that are really creating are starting out to just create art. They are creating because they have a real need to express themselves. It usually borders on obsession. What makes a photographer that has worked 60 + hours a week for clients get up before dawn on a day off to go out and create there own work? What gets a graphic designer that has works all week up early on a day off to paint? It's not Oh I think I'm going to get up today to create art. It is a real need to express oneself. The trick is to find the medium that best conveys that need. For me it is photography.