man & nature # 59 ~ photographers suck
Sunday, October 19, 2008 at 11:25AM 
Weeds, golf course, mountains, and moon • click to embiggenHere's a hint of things to come tomorrow -
The more I think about it, the more I realize that talking to photographers bores me to death. Watching photographers look at my pictures makes we want to whack them upside the head. I have arrived at a point where I want nothing to do with photographers.
To be precise, I am much more interested in artists who use photography.
And, apropos of nothing germane, there's this from the comedian Stephen Wright:
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Steve Durbin wrote: "... I think there's a problem of language here: photographers as a group seem to have an ambivalent relationship with the term artist. Perhaps to many of them it sounds too pretentious or soft or vague or unserious ....
my response: The opposite of what you mention is also quite true - many of the pictures makers I know are very uncomfortable with the tag "photographer" for themselves. Their reluctance to be so labeled is the fear that they might be thought of in the manner of those gear/ techno / technique photographers who tend to grind out an endless stream of pretty and primarily meaningless pictures.
Reader Comments (7)
Can't wait.
See? The weekend's not a dead loss after all.
Well that should boost your popularity, which I'm sure is your constant goal. In any case, I have to agree with your sentiments. But I think there's a problem of language here: photographers as a group seem to have an ambivalent relationship with the term artist. Perhaps to many of them it sounds too pretentious or soft or vague or unserious. To my mind, anyone who thinks about their photographs with the intention of understanding how they work on a viewer, how they relate to other photographs or pictures, or what they might be said to "mean"--with an eye to advancing their photography--is an artist to some degree. It's the minority that go very far in this direction, but for sure those are the ones it's interesting to have a conversation with. A subgroup of these are doing photography that might be considered less "conventional" or more "artistic." That doesn't make them necessarily better artists or photographers, but they may at least have a greater variety of ideas to engage with.
Well if my stupid comment yesterday about another photographer using your style put a burr under your saddle, I apologize. I am not an artist or a professional photographer so I don't always comment because of the fear of saying something stupid.
I did comment on the picture today and expressed myself the best I could.
As far as the comment yesterday, I saw your style in the images and thought it was you.
Hey Don, rest assured that there's not a chance in the world that you're a "photographer" in the sense that I mean it to be understood - just stay tuned to find out.
Well, I'm tired and I'm on my way to bed. I've become quite . . . I don't know, saddened, by what I perceive to be the state of photography today. Nobody seems to give a shit about THE SUBJECT anymore. Here is a link to something I wrote a couple of years ago. I just thought maybe I'm the strange one. I don't get it.
I'm in a graphic design course now. I've had to make a career change. I love it so far. But, I see the same attitude. Many people don't seem to recognize that no matter how pretty or wonderful a design looks, it fails if it doesn't relate the message. I hope it's OK to post a link like this :
http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/bbs.cgi?a=vm&mr=11744&CGISESSID=387377755158004a53f7edc818f88c0d&u=18997
I'm not sure what's got you ticked. But, it should be interesting . . . thanks for being here and creating this blog. Tim
I think you mean gearheads. With the age of the digital camera has come a lot of these into the world of photography. But they are not artists or visionaries.
I get immensely annoyed sometimes when browsing Flickr or many other photo sharing sites. Too many freaking pictures of babies, food, cats and other annoying sh*t. A camera is a paintbrush, so go paint, don't just xerox. That said, there is still a lot of good stuff, artistic stuff on said sites. And blogs like yours are great places to discuss the what and the why of pictures.
I know a lot of photographers who have a hard time even calling themselves photographers too, but not because of a negative connotation. They aspire to be photographers but don't feel qualified to call themselves that. They certainly are photographers in many cases, but prefer things like 'a doctor who takes pictures' or 'an engineer with a camera' Photographer seems too grandiose a title to claim - artist is even further off and unattainable.