Is Art Photography?

That age-old question - debated around every bohemian café table since 1839; can people who are using pencils and brushes really call themselves photographers? Emotions run high on both sides of the question. I would normally not risk criticism by taking a side - not since the advent of the digital image and the programs for manipulating it. Once I saw the first Wacom tablet I knew controversy would hot up - then came the advent of programs that made "oil paintings " out of digital files and then the AI inroads of late...It would worth your life to raise the issue at the front bar of " The Palette Knife Arms". As my life is budget-priced anyway, I can do it. I've wandered dazed through the aisle of Jacksons and wondered at the colours and accessories on sale. It is really nearly as diversely-stocked as Camera Electronics. And the thought that ethe user of a tube of paint and brush cannot set their eyes and fingers to " automatic " or " program " makes me respect them a lot more. Artists are talented and special people...but are they photographers? Do they capture life as it happens? If it is a bowl of oranges on a table, they certainly do. Oranges rarely make a run for it. Nor do they keep coming round the artist's side of the canvas asking to see what it looks like. They never complain that you've made them look fat - nor do they demand that you erase the canvas. They might be better payers than some of the photo clients, too, but I wouldn't know about that. However, once the scene shifts from the patently still life inside to the bits outside a window that move, the link to photography becomes more tenuous. The artist can be as detailed as they please, but it is rarely as detailed as the photographer. Nor can they stop motion - though they can often capture e-motion. I also thought that the impressionists, expressionists, abstractionists, and so forth also had no link with photography...but a series of monographs from some of the more adventurous photographers has convinced me that they share a great deal in common. Likewise, the less-capable of the artists and their relatives in photography can produce very similar results in the daub and blob line. I do not accuse, as I have seen some of the stuff I do. Note to the curious: Jacksons, or any other fine artist's shop, is an Aladdin's cave for many. You may be tempted. I go in for foam-core and bristol board for scale modelling, and have to tear myself away before I exit with a wooden paint box and $ 300 worth of oil paint. It's the same in Bunnings and Officeworks. In a hobby shop I just leave my wallet at the counter and they throw me out when it is empty. I've tried to suggest this to management...