I started the ball rolling some time ago about this heated subject, and I must say because of the nature of discussion, one would struggle coming to grips at finding any clear resolve. Suffice it to say, it should never be argued that just because a ‘camera’ doesn’t pose as a paintbrush, nor any other musical instrument let’s say, that it can’t act as a channel for one’s creative thoughts. In fact, and I quote Ken Rockwell on this, ‘Attempts to put numerical scales and grades on art or photos fail and wind up encouraging people to make crap.’ Taking pictures is, in fact, a pretty limitless medium and one through which someone can express their imagination even if it doesn’t completely distort or ‘change’ what’s before their very own eyes, like Dali might do to a clock… or Cezanne to a French landscape. Taking pictures should come from what’s inside your heart, and that CAN be accomplished through a lens. It’s how I shoot. It’s also what differentiates the end results from the millions of people who can take a common scene and put their own unique spin on it. The camera I lug around is, in fact, my brush and the canvas upon which the picture bleeds in to shape is my presentation of my ‘own’ reality - what I see before me.
‘Art is the expression on the imagination, not the duplication of reality’. Now, even though is slightly off course, I believe it to be the best description of what art is - even though it seems to be evolving continuously as years go by. Art is our own expression of our ‘reality’, as we interpret the world and its complexities. There is a guiding ‘truth’ that we all know exists but that we haven’t fully discovered yet, but our own ‘realities’ are what drive us to ‘it’.
Even though a camera may not resemble an ‘artistic’ device, it is surely one where someone’s imagination and ingenuity can be used to express their own imagination. Sure, Dali can distort an object and call it his own, but is it not fair to say that waiting for the better shot, or changing the angle of a scene can alter its natural appearance, whereby the photographer has essentially created a different picture altogether of what they see before them? I believe so.
