I stop reading after the first few minutes - as I do not think I fit into any of (his) three categories, (even if only weakly - as he puts it)
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I. Photography in failure mode
The problem is that photography is democratic, but talent is not. A lot of people who photograph would have painted if they could. Their assumption was that because you could use equipment to paint the outlines, the artistic bar was lower. They were wrong. Faced with a lack of vision, poor photographers went in one of three ways:
A. The scientists. Some failed photographers attempt to turn photography into an exercise in metrics: how many tones, do I have a 1:255 range, how many line pairs per millimeter, how many megapixels? Their thought is: if you don't have the ability to succeed at photography in the classical, pictorial sense, redefine photography so there is some objective standard you can meet. This is "pixelography," not photography. Photography is not solely (or even primarily) about objective measures. If it were, computers would be very good at it.
B. The magicians. Other failed artists seek the answers in ritual magic: ABC pyro, Azo, Amidol, Acros (why do all of these things start with 'a'?). These are people who cling to unnecessarily complicated methods. Maybe it is a twist on the Velveteen Rabbit in which suffering, not love, makes you real. People who used these old-fashioned methods when they were current largely did so because they were current at the time. They would have reached for Tri-X if they could have. And if using the same paint as Picasso doesn't make you Picasso, why would using any particular photographic material make you into an Adams?
C. The slackers. And some pursue badness for its own sake: using the poor imaging qualities of Lomography, reheated counterculturism, and pictures of pieces of litter to cover for lack of an artistic vision.
Search your conscience. To some extent, every photographer today fits into one of these categories - even if only weakly.
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I just take photographs, (images), because I enjoy taking images - when I stop enjoying taking images, I will stop photography