Come in! There are a few adventures I’ve written about, but most of the content offers classes in photography and mentoring for photographers, including photo theory, which, although a vital part in our profession, is largely an overlooked subject in all published media that profits from and feeds our gadget minded mindset today.
Chapter 9 – Photography: An Invented “Art”
WHAT PHOTOGRAPHY IS
Excerpt from What Art Is:
Nearly all writers who analyze the nature of photography concur with Rand in emphasizing the limitations of the photographer’s role as compared to the painter’s. Since photography is, as she stated, a “mechanical means of reproducing whatever is put in front of the camera,” the photographer is constrained in both his choice of subject and his treatment of it. First, he can select his subject only from the actual objects and events accessible to him. Whereas a painter imaginatively “constructs” an image, [Susan] Sontag observes, a photographer merely “discloses” something that exists. In contrast with a work of art, which is created by its maker “on a ‘blank slate’ bit by bit over time,” the photographic image is formed more or less instantaneously, by the action of light on a chemically sensitized surface. The photographer–unlike the composer, painter, sculptor, or poet–does not select and shape every minute detail of the work. [p. 182]
Black Friday, November 27, 2015
Editors: The Aristos Foundation
Dear Louis Torres and Michelle Kamhi,
The only the ‘black’ is sometimes facing my time is running out. My research to best answer a question sent to me by an aspiring photographer that I mentor (in response to my latest blog article – https://jamesschotgallerystudio.com/blog/studio-press/mentoring-amazing-way-to-photo-magic-pre-visualization/) brought me to your Chapter 9 – Photography: An Invented “Art” – What Photography Is[p. 182 [ http://www.aristos.org/whatart/wai.htm -chapter 9]. Overall and in general I will agree this is true, but not when it comes to my photographic “art”(NOT COMPUTER – which I call Compography)
For my photographic art, I treat a single negative (transparency, and today’s digital file) as a blank canvas where I “construct” or literally paint with light. For the former, I wrote to exemplify https://jamesschotgallerystudio.com/blog/gallery-news/ghost-of-chilmark-woods-true-story/ and for the latter please see https://jamesschotgallerystudio.com/gallery/james-schot/aurora-with-eos/. I also do Stock Art for which I will agree, no matter how refined the visions may be, with your “Invented Art” assessment, but it’s NOT TRUE of what I call my “photographic art,” all of which is in my https://jamesschotgallerystudio.com/gallery/james-schot/, excluding the selected scenery as by your high standard.
I am in line with what you express in “About Aristos.” Too much “art” today needs the embellishments of ‘art (or photo) speak’ or all that some say that matters is ‘the process,’ to which I do not agree. I am inspired by “The Foundation’s chief purpose” [http://www.aristos.org/arisfoun.htm]. My work in the book Illusions of Martha’s Vineyard was accepted by the renown Victoria & Albert Museum in London, yet my work in general is overlooked and eclipsed by photo software and gadgets, when it really explores the boundaries of photography and bridges its creative limits with the new compographic art now possible mainly through algorithms of Photoshop. I’ve connected today with the hope of contributing to your purpose.
Visually yours,
James
James Schot Gallery & Photo Studio
2800 North Federal Highway
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33306
www.jamesschotgallerystudio.com
954-564-1112 for hours and appointments
PS, Cc’d Carlos Solano, B777 Captain, and Dr. Neal Wiseman, psychologist, both avid photographers I mentor and always looking to inspire. Yvonne Hannan happens to be a big fan.
Louis Torres: torres@
Michelle Marder Kamhi: kamhi@
