It's an inevitable consequence of trying to turn something very simple into something very complex.
There's nothing to photography - there never was. All you had to do was read the brief camera manual, find somebody with a darkroom, and hey presto: you knew what it was about. That experience either moved the Earth for you or it left you cold. If the former, then you set out on the long road to personal discovery, made lots of lousy prints and then it clicked, and you got it.
So you could print well. But nobody said that made you a great photographer. There never were many great photographers - just zillions of mediocre ones who could get by. This is fairly obvious if only by the fact that we can research and find the same names cropping up over and over again. Were there in fact zillions of good ones, the ones we think of as great masters wouldn't have been tall enough poppies to show. And ditto painting and all the rest of the graphic arts.
All photography is is the medium.
Whichever branch of art we play in, it's the art factor, our ability as artists that makes us stand out or not, not the medium.
Digital has just cut short the learning curve that was film. Devoid of that pair of technical obstacles that demanded a modicum of dedication, digital promises instant gratification without the period of grace where you discovered if it was really all worth the time and the tears; you reach mediocrity very quickly indeed today.
Also, with more education and more money floating around in education, it allows lots of 'students' to spend critical years doing nothing much more than ego tripping. That these same students have possibly also had a deeper education in English language and literature permits them to stretch a lot of boundaries. In my day, professional photography was a closed world of which few knew the slightest thing, and cared even less. A professional was the chap who photographed babies and weddings and took your passport pictures. The worlds of Mad Av and industrial photography were entirely unknown to the public consciousness. Who was Richard Avedon? I'm not joking: few would have had the slightest idea back in the late 50s. Roll on the 60s and it's all change: the new train's in the staion. All at once everybody knew who David Bailey was even if they had never held a copy of Vogue in their hand.
Photography had come of age. It had climbed out of puberty and was the sexiest ticket in town; it could get you laid as much as your appetite could stand; it could get you all around the world and you never again had to pay for a holiday; it could make you richer than anybody else in your social circle. What was not to like?
In the UK at least, photography wasn't thought of as 'fine art' at all; the first galleries I can think of were 'sponsored' efforts, concentrating on worthy studies of the poor and depressingly derpressed in the industrial wastelands of a changing Britain. You could see them as political extension, socialism on the wall, if you will.
Then came the commerical ones like Hamilton's and a new interest was sparked by the fashion magazines, lifestyle magazines and the inevitable influences from across the ever-narrower Atlantic.
With its transistion from being, broadly, nothing but hobby or commerce, it morphed into art, where and when there suddenly were no limits. Anything and everything could go, and it did. Photographers who would once have been jailed for their photography suddenly held exhibitions and became big ticket players. Galleries grew rich off their transgressions. It could, and will, only end in tears.
Of course the general run of work is going down the pan; where else can it go? The top was reached decades ago, and some of the same guys and gals active in the 60s are still cutting-edge today. You can only be the first up Everest one time. For a newcomer, it must be terminally depressing to know you will never match the magic of what's gone before you. You can only be a clone, a prostitute, a hunter for the money. In essence, no better than the professional so many of these 'artists' despise. Sweet irony.
Rob C