Is Photography Dead?

Is art not the act of creativity, imagination, viewing or thinking a subject or idea and capturing it in your own perspective? Where does it say that the act of creating a photograph must be captured as an exact representation of the form as seen with the naked eye? Art is the creative vision, whatever form that may take. Who are you to judge?

I don't think that there's anything wrong with finding art in things such as a 'hole-in-the-ground' sculpture or a cell-phone photograph. I think it just makes art more accesible to all and as long as there is a fan-base then who is to say it's not art? The author sounds like an old-fogey that doesn't want to accept where the world is going and the article seems full of misconceptions.

Manipulaiton of images did not start with Photoshop or the digital era. Over the years I have created images such as a Lake Erie shoreline enhanced by a Maui sunset. I once did a portrait for a family who had never been photographed together as adults. Using a group photo I shot at the father's funeral with spaces left for missing family members, together with a picture from one son's wedding, and a photo of the late father taken at the same son's wedding, I created a formal, family image -- with film -- that never happened. It used to be that many people shot pictures, but the creation of art began in the darkroom. The only change today with digital cameras and Photoshop is that many more people can be creative with less efffort and far less expense.

I've always been mistified by the simplicity of photography. What is seen, by the human eye, through the camera lense is the photograph. I personally have always strived to develope my work that way, both in the camera and in the darkroom. Trying not to see what isn't there, but only see what is there and still interesting to the later viewer of a print. I always felt that, like a good joke, if you had to explain it, it was ruind. Same would apply to HOW you achieve the effect . If it wasn't obviously natural and raw, then i'd failed. But even Ansel Adams manipulated his work, knowing full well when he exposed the film in the camera that he would need to adjust what he put there later in in the darkroom. That's how and why he developed his zonal system. I think most photographers, even snapshooters, realize there is a difference between photographic art and something else. It's the vision thing, that counts.