"Ya gotta be good to lucky and lucky to be good."
– My Dad (and just about everyone else's!)
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
– Seneca
Has the person who has accidentally taken a superb photograph made a work of art?
To answer your question - no, one cannot "accidentally" make art, not according to the definition of art I live by. I think of art as something that is intentional. It can be experimental, but even that is intentional. But more than that, the work created must also be solely the product of the artist's creative mind and aesthetic skills. Art is an ideal that few are able to achieve.
Being in the right place at the right time does not make it "art". Rosenthal's photograph may be famous and may be well-composed, but it's photojournalism – a type of documentation – not art. Culturally, we have come to call it art, because of its artistic nature, but, in my view, it isn't really art.
In fact, most of what we see and call art is not art. It's documentation, it's pictorial, it's eye-catching, it's full of design, it's aesthetic, it's beautiful (or not), but it's not art.
My working definition is this: Art is the product of a creative, expressive mind. Art is made when an artist creates something using their own creative mind and aesthetic skills.
Photographers make a photograph (that's something, isn't it), but rarely is the
content a product of the photographer's own creative mind. Rosenthal didn't create the flag raising (the content that everyone raves about); he used his photojournalistic instincts and keen eye (his aesthetic skills) to record the event in an engaging and compelling way - but that doesn't make it art.
Michelangelo carved "David" from a block of marble - he created it from his own imagination using his aesthetic skills. He painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel based on what was in his head (and approved by his patron - Pope Julius II).
What about painters who paint from a photograph, though – is it art? Hmmmm... grey area here. If they paint exactly what the photograph shows, then no - they are simply using paint to document a scene from a photograph. But if they add their own creative interpretation by changing what the photograph shows or by combining photographs, then it's approaching that "ideal" of art.
What about painters who paint landscapes, the
Group of Seven,
Tom Thomson and
Emily Carr (must see:
Exhibit at the AGO - on until 9 Aug.) – they are artists. What exists on their canvases is a creation of their mind's interpretation of the scene in front of them.
Yet, some will point out that photographers add their own interpretation of a scene when they choose a lens, aperture, shutter speed, filter, perspective and composition – doesn't that make it art? My feeling is still, no. They aren't capturing something that is the product of their creative mind – all of the content captured by the photographer still existed whether or not the scene was photographed, so they are documenting. They are being very specific about what they are documenting, taking advantage of the conditions that exist at that time and place to create a compelling photograph, but it is still documentation. What would make it "art", by the definition I'm working with, would be if the photographer
re-created the scene in a new way, perhaps through long exposures, camera movement, multiple exposures combined in a new way (no, not HDR!).
Is black-and-white photography art? While it is a departure from the scene, it is still not a product of the creative mind, but rather a technical process that converts what we see into a different form.
Are the photographs created by Ansel Adams art? They are artistic and certainly cutting edge for his time, but, no, by this (some would call strict) definition, they are not art because the content existed whether or not he tripped the shutter. Now, he was interpretive of the content, but anyone there at the same time would have seen the same thing. They may not have the technical skills or aesthetic eye to capture it, but the end work existed outside of the photographer's mind – in colour, mind you, but it existed. Adams captured what he saw; that's not art. Weston added even more interpretation and he certainly looked and saw more closely than most. But even his subjects existed outside of his mind. He had a wonderful aesthetic touch and skill, but he didn't create anything that didn't already exist outside of his mind.
From my perspective, artists create the thing they call art. We photographers
can do this (and some do - like some of the work
maddog is doing, or the smoke images by
wmchauncy and the work
BobDavid is doing here on LuLa, but also
Jerry Uelsmann). But by far, most of us (me included) get ourselves to the right place at the right time to use our technical knowledge and aesthetic eye to capture what is already there. We don't create the thing we photograph, we capture it, then call it our own.
The problem is that, too often, we confuse technical and aesthetic competence in a specific medium with art. Art is creative and is a product of the artist's mind. The artist uses a specific medium to re-create what they imagine, not what already exists.
