> I guess my distaste for the genre is, that for all appearances, it does > not > rely on the eye or skill of the photographer or the quality of the image > necessarily to be successful. And that bothers me because someone could > put > ten of these in mattes and frames and show them to acclaim, when a ten year > old with a camera snapping at random could come up with something quite > similar. I certainly can, walking down any old street, in any city, USA, > zip > code goes here.
I think you are missing something. In my opinion (as a person with an art degree), Godfrey's photo is an example of Photography as Fine Art. I can assume from your comments that you are not a fan of abstract art, which is how I see Godfrey's work from this particular series. You see a photo and want it to tell you a story, but it does not have to. There are no rules in art. This means that, yes, a child could take similar photos, hang them and call them art. However, if you take a closer look at Godfrey's series, I think you will see a lot more skill involved than you think. Composition is a huge part of his photos, and it's almost always very good (I realize "good" is subjective, but I'm writing from work and don't have enough time to be less so). A child is not going to know how to take abstract photos of everyday objects and make the composition visually appealing, or notice colors or forms that contrast or compliment each other and capture them in a similarly appealing way. Skill is as much involved in photographing abstract shapes as it is in painting a portrait or taking a landscape photograph. The child could call their photos art and they would be, but it takes skill to make that art look good to more than just their parents. John Celio (I would love to cite particular artists work, but don't remember enough from my university naps, er, art history classes) -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
