Are you an artist?

For me a photograph is art when all the right elements come together, inspiration, composition, the technical realisation of the shot...

sometimes you're inspired and get a technically perfect shot but the composition isn't there; no good.
sometimes it's a great composition and spot on technically but the inspiration just wasn't there, it's boring; no good
sometimes you see the potential for a great image, you know it'll work but for whatever technical reason the photo is a dud; no good.

...I get a lot of 'no goods' but maybe one in every couple of hundred or so are what I'd call art. I find that as I get more experienced I can tell when something isn't going to work so there's no point hustling to shoot it, living where I do a lot of the most inspiring stuff I see is natural, birds in flight, breaking waves, fleeting stuff like that; I've learnt to just enjoy the things that I know, that for whatever reason, I cannot capture as a photo.
Anyway if they're really good I can always paint them. :)
 
I'm on my phone right now, so I'll try to make this brief... I'll get caught up on the rest of the thread when I get home, I just wanted to add something...
As far as your .1%, maybe you just have a high shooting ratio.

I think I've just set the bar too high.

I think the .1% figure may actually be generous, but it's not because the bar is too high - it's because I just don't have that much to say.

I don't really have strong feelings about many things...
 
Yes I am an artist, if I take a picture, draw a picture, or build something out of solid aluminum, I consider myself an artist. I do all of these things.
 
OK, so to actually answer my own question - if an artist is a person who produces art, I don't think I could call myself an artist with a straight face. I feel that at this point, I should be producing some art though. I don't have an answer to the last part of my question, because I do not feel that I am producing "art" now.

For me, art is more than simply 'making stuff'. I do make a lot of stuff. I'm an aircraft mechanic, so I have a lot of experience making things out of metal. I make custom titanium lock picks, for example - and I have had people call them works of art. They're just tools to me.

I'm not going to berate someone for calling it art, but I'm not going to call it art.


So, anyway, I think as soon as I figure out what I want to say, I'll start producing something that I would feel comfortable calling art.
 
No I am not an artist...



I am an arteeesst.

And from what I understand, the original "definition" of fine art is art for the sake of art. I read that somewhere. Yes it's a dead definition but I still think that fine art isn't necessarily trying to say something. It's just there to be art. That's not to say that things that have a purpose (so to speak) aren't art - I just don't consider them fine art.
 
Josh, it's my opinion that you think too much of art. It isn't something that is out of reach, that ordinary people can't create. I've been looking at your images for over three years now. Whether you want to take credit for it or not, you create art. By the way, you should have had the water on in your hand washing shot a while back.
 
 
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It's not that I think it's out of reach or anything - I'm pretty sure I could 'make art' (not necessarily saying that it will be good, lol) if I wanted to, it's just that there aren't many things that I feel I need to 'get out there' - if you know what I mean. It's like, if you wanted to write a book, but you didn't know what to write about. That's what I'm saying. I feel like I'm just wasting my time taking a bunch of 'pointless' snapshots. Like I should at least attempt to do something that 'matters'. I hope some of that made sense...


I'm sure what I am calling 'art' is actually just a type of art. I don't know what the name of it would be though, lol. Even considering that, I would still argue that a lot of photography is not 'art' - but I don't want to get into that too much in this thread.
But, whatever you want to call that branch of art, I feel like I should be doing it, and I'm not.

I feel like I have more-or-less mastered the technical side of things, got bored with it, and decided to move on. I used to draw a lot, and I was quite good - but that was over a decade ago, lol. I always sucked at painting. I've never tried sculpting, but it doesn't interest me very much anyway, lol. If I'm going to make art, it's going to have to be photographic art.

By the way, you should have had the water on in your hand washing shot a while back.

HAHA - that was actually for another forum where people were asking why everybody's hands were always so clean when they supposedly work with their hands all day.
 
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My reading of Josh's question is not that it is about pigeonholing or categorization at all, but about how you feel about the images you make. I have made a lot of what I call my 'pretty pictures' - usually photos I was moved to take by my surroundings and the experience - and I feel quite differently about those than I do about ones that go a little deeper but that still come from within.

Not necessarily how you feel about the individual images, more how you feel about the body of your work (when you say 'the images you make', I can read that either way - the individual images, or the body ... not sure which you meant).

I guess the real question is, are you content producing a 'product', or do you feel that you should be doing something more?
 
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OP, feel like you do.

There is 'an art' to bringing in a good photo though.
 
I guess the real question is, are you content producing a 'product', or do you feel that you should be doing something more?

that just depends if you mean that whatever you define as a "'product'" is somehow of less value to ....you....the art world....your peers...whoever...than whatever you define as "something more".
 
I guess the real question is, are you content producing a 'product', or do you feel that you should be doing something more?

that just depends if you mean that whatever you define as a "'product'" is somehow of less value to ....you....the art world....your peers...whoever...than whatever you define as "something more".
No - I already know my answer. That question is for all of you. :lol:
 
I find this whole thread totally confusing. :lol:
 
I guess the real question is, are you content producing a 'product', or do you feel that you should be doing something more?

that just depends if you mean that whatever you define as a "'product'" is somehow of less value to ....you....the art world....your peers...whoever...than whatever you define as "something more".
No - I already know my answer. That question is for all of you. :lol:

Then:

On my time: NO.

On clients time: YES.
 

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