I'm going back and reviewing some threads that I missed, because I wasn't looking at the photography stuff.
Saying photography is difficult is like saying music is difficult. But there are so many dimensions involved in that statement. Unskilled photographers may use automation and technology to achieve some modicum of technical competence, just as some musicians can be technically improved using tools like reverb, sampling, and autotune. That doesn't make technique unimportant. I once asked my tuba teacher, who was a symphony player, which was more important, musicality or technique? His answer, "Yes."
The OP's point (as quoted from a teacher) was that too much photography is trite, which means that to be non-trite, which is hard, it must never have been done before. To me, this is worshiping at the altar of innovation, which does seem to me to be particularly popular these days. At this point, however, is there any photograph at all that hasn't been made already? Some people revere craft, and some revere narrative and story. Some want photographs to pound their emotions, some want them to inspire political action, some want them to outrage those with whom they agree (or disagree), and others want photographs to take them to a place they'd rather be than where they are. And some just want photographs to show the orientation of the electrolytic capacitors on a power-supply board. But the most profound photos don't seem to have any particular goal or purpose--they just seem to work at some deeper level.
The more memorable the subject, the more people are motivated to represent it artistically, for reasons that range from remembering they or their loved ones were there to trying to say something new about a place about which millions of things have already been said. This is just as true for the "f/8 and be there" decisive-moment types as it is for landscape photographers. The one thing that is uniquely photographic is its unassailable (Paul would say indexical) connection to a time and place. So, choosing the right time is necessary for
all photographs to be successful. But the definition of the right time isn't necessarily catching the peak of the action, or being related to any action at all.
The problem is that memorable subjects have themselves become trite, simply because so many are motivated to photograph them. Does that make them any less beautiful? I have photos of memorable places on my walls, and they inspire me with their beauty. So what if others made similar photographs?
Amir, the photo of the Japanese girl might be more superficially memorable, but the photo of the trees would be more likely to find a place on my wall--I hang art in my house for different reasons than MoMA buys art for their collection. They are preserving profundity. I am preserving peace and beauty. That's the thing with art--it must serve an infinitude of purposes, many of which are utterly unrelated to the "goals" of the artist.
About a decade a go, the photo below set a record by selling for $3.9 million.
Do we think Cindy Sherman (the photographer) just grabbed this with a point-n-shoot on her way by as an expression of "f/8 and be there"? No way. This was as carefully crafted as anything done in the photography world, but it's a subject not too different from what anyone might have in their iphone library. As with Amir's photo, though, it captures something important (at least to somebody), though we don't know what that is. And unlike Amir, Cindy Sherman has never attempted to enlighten us--the photo either speaks for itself or it doesn't.
Here's another. Is this a grab shot?
I show this one on purpose, hoping to draw Paul into more commentary, because I know it's an important photo to him in particular. At first "Instagram" glance, it's a snapshot. But Lee Friedlander did things on purpose. This is where I agree with the OP--this looks easy but it is not. What makes it difficult is not, however, the innovation of it--but rather...what? I honestly don't know. Sure, the formal composition is right on the mark, but that serves Friedlander's purpose without defining it. And he never felt the need to enlighten us that I've seen. I think those who think they can identify what makes a photograph, or a painting, or a jazz riff profound art should be out there doing it. God knows I've tried.
Rick "still trying to figure it out after 45 years of practice" Denney
