I was really only using photos on flickr to illustrate a point about my own pictures, which was that they previously weren’t very good because I hadn’t (to borrow a similie from journalism) learned to edit before I pressed the button. I didn’t have any of my own bad photos to serve as illustrations because along the way I’ve disposed of them (the photographer’s greatest tool is his trash can) – and so I pointed to flickr as a source of photos similar to the ones I used to take (and still do often take, much to my annoyance) and be dissatisfied with.

I do of course agree with your (our?) list of three points.

I suppose we proved each others points there:

The value is in the discussion.
Art is in the eye (and the gift) of the beholder.
Everyone has a view of what art should be.

I would stand by my definition of the argument as elitist as the claim is presented on a clear (meta)physical difference. The presentation wasn’t built on the definition of what anyone could attain it was based on an “if you had what I had then your photos would be worthwhile”.

To be fair. There is no insinuation that this brain damage is not obtainable to the amatuer. But perhaps when we are trying to set a standard we are should be more open to the possibility that those standards are set by more than our own limited experiences.

So I agree that the discussion shouldn’t be elitist. And it isn’t.But your starting point was.

As for the last point – erm! Not sure I get what you mean here. I think you may be confusing elitist with critical.

Go ahead and continue to snap whatever you like for whatever motivation. I’m sure what you do will give pleasure to you and others.

My point wasn’t that you shouldn’t or couldn’t communicate your view of the world in whatever way you wanted. Go ahead and make beautiful pictures. I wasn’t saying that all photography had to be photojournalism. No, my point was that I thought that your reasoning of why was elitist.

I was taking exception to the idea that you have something that sets you apart from the hundreds of other people who post snaps on Flickr. It was something that, you suggested, set you apart from them. In fact you went as far as to suggest that it made your pictures better. You had no good reason for that other than a mystical brain damage and your subjective view that your pictures where better.

I was comparing that attitude to the attitude I see in my industry where a lack of objective difference is often glossed over with the same kind of subjective elitism.

But this could very easily degenerate into an art vs. artefact debate so I will just say this.

It’s nice to have a difference between life and art and I would hate it if all art where as literal as journalism – each has their place which both should strive to break free from. But I thought the point of art was that was how an artist communicated. Not telling others why their art was second rate.

Tsk, tsk. An excessive literalism is (another) hobgoblin of small minds.

The journalist should of course have some aspirations to telling the literal truth – or at least to lying in a particular cause. The artist, on the other hand, tells only figurative truth. If the criterion for a photograph is that it must show only what would have been seen by someone standing beside the photographer at the instant the shutter button was pressed, then photography must abandon any pretense of art.

I photograph to communicate to you what I saw; I work without an editor and make no pretense that there is a connection between a photograph and a “fact”. A journalist – well, he communicates either the facts or the story his editor wishes to tell.

Still, a journalist can take crappy pictures, and many do. Too bad. It makes readers turn the page. Capa wouldn’t have stood for this, and neither should we.