One of the most articulate writers in photography today is Brooks Jensen, editor of Lenswork magazine. In the latest issue he discusses something that I have observed for a long time but couldn't get my mind around what was going on and that is the clannishness of photographers.
Coming from a very traditional black and white, medium and large format, darkroom background I always found it interesting about how folks of my persuasion often looked down their respective noses at photographers who did color. True fine art photographers only did black and white. We were the purist even though we abstracted the world around us by shooting in black and white!
A version of the same phenomenon has happened over the last few years as digital technology has woven itself into the fabric of photographic processes. Does a new/different workflow make us less of a photographer.
I used to have the most wonderful philosophical discussions with a good friend over whether or not a digital photographic print was actually a photograph since it wasn't created with light-sensitive materials. Another equally articulate friend said, "
Who cares? It's photographic art!"
In the end, the image either works or it doesn't. If it works it doesn't matter how I got there. If it doesn't, it doesn't matter how I got there. It's not about the process, it's the image. Craft may be the language of the arts but it is not the art. Craft is not a substitute for vision.
And, to those of you who think your friends have deserted you when they start to explore workflows different from what they have traditionally done and of no interest to you, get over it.
Jim, Bill Jay died in May of this year. He was 69. I was a follower of his insightful writing over years, from way back when he edited Album magazine. I always hoped to meet him but never made it. A good photographer too, particularly of other photographers.
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