I'm sympathetic to objections to Ken's articles based on an understanding that Photography is not an art. From the viewpoint that Photography can never be more than a craft, Ken's article is baffling.
All my arguments in support of this article from Ken are based on a presumption that Photography can be and is an art. Ken's article cannot be understood from the premise that Photography is no more than a craft.
Where you and Ken are both wrong then, is that photography is
always both Art and Craft. You can't create a photograph without a camera, the skill to operate it, and the skill to do something with the RAW or negative after the exposure. There is no such thing as photography that is "only Art" because you always have to have some equipment and technical skill or you have no photograph, in the same way that you cannot have a painting without the canvas, paints, brushes, and the technique used to apply the paint to the canvas. There is a symbiosis between Art and Craft that cannot be dismissed; Craft is always the foundation on which the Art is built, and if there is no Craft, then there can be no Art. There is a huge body of photography that is lacking in both Art and Craft, and a similarly large body that has a degree of Craft but little in the way of Art (the proverbial "sharp image of a fuzzy concept"). Then you have the work of masters such as Ansel Adams, which has a high degree of both Art and Craft.
Please note that I am
not defining images with "a high degree of Craft" as noise-free, perfectly sharp, and having perfectly true-to-life color. Craft is knowing what tools and techniques to use to realize one's artistic vision as fully as possible, with the fewest possible deviations from the original intent; choosing the appropriate tools and the appropriate techniques to capture and create the Art. If the artistic intent requires a significant degree of blurring and noise/grain to achieve the intended effect, then choosing a Holga as the tool that most efficiently realizes this intent is good Craft. Conversely, if the intended end result is a large, detailed image free of blur, aberrations, and artificial textures (AKA noise/grain) so that the texture and detail of the subject can engage the viewer, then choosing a Holga would be bad Craft. Similarly, choosing an 8x10 view camera to photograph birds in flight or X Games action would also be bad Craft.
You've compared camera and lens to an artist's brush as a metaphor to demonstrate that camera doesn't matter, but that analogy actually argues against you. Choosing the wrong camera is just like using a wide-tipped brush for detailing the eyelashes of the subject. Sure, you can do that, but the effect you'll get will be much different than if you use a fine-tipped brush to paint in the fine details. And you can use a fine-tipped brush to fill in large areas of background, but using a wide brush will get the job done a lot faster. The brush matters, and so does the camera.
That's not quite true. Here is a quote from the article acknowledging that the equipment makes at least some difference.
"Just about any camera, regardless of how good or bad it is, can be used to create outstanding photographs for magazine covers, winning photo contests and hanging in art galleries. The quality of a lens or camera has almost nothing to do with the quality of images it can be used to produce."
Great. You have one
one quote from the article that, if interpreted a certain way, leaves a small crack of wiggle room that the equipment
might make some unspecified small difference. But it gets lost in the din of Rockwell's numerous other unconditional, absolutist pronouncements to the contrary. It's perhaps enough to excuse Rockwell from the charge that he enthusiastically believes that the camera never matters under any circumstance, but not enough to excuse him from the charge of being a bad writer who fails to adequately explore the limitations of the "camera doesn't matter" concept and discuss some situations where the camera does matter, or at least might matter, to avoid leading the inexperienced astray. And the portion is small enough that it is easily missed, in which case the reader will be left with the wrong impression unless he has enough experience to properly filter the bovine excrement that permeates much of the rest of the article.
Rockwell and others have cited numerous examples of photographic Art that was created with tools that are less than the best in the areas of resolution and noise. But no one has offered any real insight or analysis into this question:
Does the image succeed as Art because of or in spite of the technical imperfections of the tools used to create it?Yes, some artistically acclaimed images have been captured with cell phones and Holgas and pinhole cameras and other similar types of gear. But that does not prove that the images
could not have been better artistically if they were shot with a DSLR or MFDB. It's equally possible that the images manage to struggle through their technical baggage and engage the viewer anyway, or that they are simply pretentious crap whose primary claim to merit is the novelty of the tool used to capture them. But regardless of the answer to the question, the choice of tool matters. If the answer is "because of", then the tool mattered because it was the most straightforward option to create the particular "look" desired. If the answer is "in spite of", then choosing a more capable tool would have probably made it easier for the photographer to achieve his desired artistic result. In either case, the choice of tool has some effect on the final image, either desirable or undesirable, or some combination of both. You cannot separate Craft and Art; Craft is always the foundation for Art.
