As I’ve traveled on my photographic journey one of the things that continues to fascinate me is the art side of the medium.  I pay attention to it not necessarily because I fancy myself as some kind of “artiste” but because I am interested in learning about the historical influences and hopefully a little about what makes “good” photography good.  I think it is helpful to see what the possibilities are and use that knowledge to form and cultivate my own vision and refine my approach to my own work.

I understand that art – and what makes Good Art – is very subjective.  And there seems to be sort of a consensus, at least to the casual observer, that art has to be weird to be good.  And the weirder the better.  Terms like “cutting edge” or “pushing the boundaries” or even “visionary” are thrown around like compliments in a singles bar.  After spending time looking at various mediums and what people do and don’t consider “Good” it becomes quite apparent that art, and one’s taste and appreciation in art, is highly personal and very subjective.

Kathy & I recently attended the opening for The Light Factory’s Annuale and annual Member’s Show.  The Annuale is a juried show, where they bring in a prominent curator or director to be the juror, and submissions come from all over the world.  This year they had something like 120 submissions and 6 were chosen for the show.  I’ve entered the Annuale for the last 3 years.  Not because I think my work has a chance to get in, or even because I think that my photography would ever even be considered Art, but because I find the exercise of choosing a theme, editing the photos down to the required 5-7 choices and writing an Artist’s Statement that describes the work and outlines my intention to be a fascinating exercise and a worthwhile educational process.  For me that’s pretty much all there is.  It would be great to have my work chosen, but there’s not much chance of that.  And that sentiment is only reinforced when I see what work is chosen.

It’s interesting to me that for the last 4 years’ shows there is always work that I look at and think, “yeah, I get that.”  I see the photographer’s intention, can somehow connect emotionally to the work and appreciate what they have done.  And there is always at least one selection, often two or more, that I look at and think, “huh?”  And this is not unique to this particular museum or this particular show.  I find myself wondering these things any time I look at a show where the work was somehow “chosen” based on someone else’s interpretation of artistic merit.  And I don’t necessarily mean to imply that I think there is anything wrong with it, I just find it fascinating.

After the opening we had dinner with some friends, several of whom had also submitted work to the Annuale and at least one who did not enter because he didn’t feel like his work stood any chance of being picked (although I disagree).  All of them had the same conclusions about the same selections.  They tended to favor the same ones I did and were shaking their heads at the same ones that make me question my own taste.

It would be easy to get discouraged by all this, and many people do.  I find it to be a fascinating part of the educational process and am actually encouraged when I feel that I have been able to come up with a series of photos that work pretty well together and write an Artist’s Statement that sounds – at least to me – cohesive and coherent.  Whether my work gets picked or not doesn’t really bother me.  It would be great to have my work chosen, but that’s not why I do what I do.  I truly feel that I would rather have people who appreciate my work find me, and not force my work on others and try to convince them to appreciate it.  That’s probably backwards and not the way a true artist would work, but that’s the way I do it.