Where is the line between appeal and art in photography?

[Iron Flatline]

This may not be super helpful, but one aspect that matters to me is whether the creator of a piece thought at the time that he was creating art.

To qualify my comment: I know there are art pieces that at their time of inception were not considered a purely artistic endeavor - craft pieces come to mind. I also know there are a lot of artistic pieces that are considered art by no one other than their creators.

Nonetheless: intent is one factor that ought to be considered.

 

[LaFoto]

In reply to your words here, "Iron Flatline", again I have to think of the person who created the stage background for our "Theodora"-performance yesterday a week ago. And since this entire thread has made me think of him over and again I feel that the time has come to share my thoughts about this person with you.

His creation has nothing to do with photography.
But when we put ourselves in touch with this man, we knew we were contacting an artist - in so far as he is a person who creates canvases and (tries to) make a (sort of decent) living out of it (with limited success - but only moneywise). He studied arts at college, has been a painter ever since, event decorator and whatnot --- and we told him about the project and our need to find someone who would create the background for our tiny stage inside a church.

By the time we met him in person first inside that church for him to see and get a feel of the location/venue, he had not only gathered as much information on the piece we were going to play as he could , but he had already accumulated a whole amount of thoughts on the topic/storyline and its meaning, both basic and metaphorical. AND had started to think of how to put all those meanings, the whole polarity captured in that Händel oratorio on love and hate, loyalty and betrayal, power and justice, life and death, divine love and earthly power etc. into ONE background that would need to carry this line of tension all through the piece from beginning to end.

His thoughts alone showed me that here is someone who wants to create an additional piece of ART to the artistic music by Händel and the equally artistic (I dare say) dramaturgy created by our dramaturg/director to make this oratorio a STAGED sort of opera-thing.

We later met him again in his humble abode and he presented us with drawings showing the colour combinations he was thinking of, all following his initial ideas, with several variations, and all the while he underlined what he thought his stage background could express by the choice of material, colours, combination etc. We knew: there was a deep thinker working along with us on bringing this production about.

Since he is extremely short of money, he chose to primarily work with waste materials. He went to "organise" things, discarded strips of wood from furniture shops, thrown-away carton etc. and only charged us of some 60 Euro in material costs for nails and sticky strips (similar to Scotch band or sellotape yet a little different) - and when we started to build up the stage, each and every craftsman among the helpers secretly rolled their eyes to the ceiling when they saw his comparatively poor craft in putting together this background.

YET - they all managed to set it up, the backs looking "patched" as they did, with only the FRONTS showing (and those were important), and when it was up and standing and the stage lights were set ... it was PERFECT.

AND a piece of art in itself.
(Only was this piece of art not made to endure the times ... the stage had to be ripped off right after the performance, so all there now still is is photos of the scenes).

Which underlines to me that even with only very few means you can create art when the process already begins in your head and your creation means to (and manages to) express your own interpretation of things - whether they be the storyline of a piece like here, or whether they be "the story of your life" or parts thereof or just emotions created by them etc.

Do you see what I mean?

 

[craig]

Art is not a popularity contest. Art has a lot of different audiences. There is certainly no correct answer to your question.

Maybe this argument is cerebral masturbation. Stinks that hot chicks with cleavage are more popular then the "art" shot on flickr. My philosophy is do your best and call it good. Does not matter wether you are shooting copy work or an editorial spread for VF. The line is drawn between people who put time and effort into their work and those who do not.

Get your work out there. Do not look back and do not try and label it. Certainly the competition will keep us on our toes, but that is one of the many beautiful things about photography.