D. Brian Nelson wrote:

Yes, it does appear to be beyond you.  Fashion photography is a subset of commercial photography.  Instead of looking at those mostly commercial craftsmen you mentioned, you should be looking at Cartier-Bresson and Weston and Newton and artists who had damned little use for commercial photography.  (Yes, Weston did portraits to support himself and Newton took fashion assignments, though he often complained about having to do that.) 

I used to think fashion was the pinnacle of photography as well, and I still admire it done well.  And the guys you mention do it very well indeed.  But it remains commercial photography, more akin to Auto Trader shooting than to art.

(OK a caveat:  Newton shot fashion because of his art.  Avedon shot fashion then became an artist.  There is some grey area, but that same grey area exists between product shooting and art as well.)

-Don

P.S.  If you're interested in fashion photography, the only place that is exclusively focused on it, on the web, is The Fashion Only Forum at http://www.duroi.com/fashionforum/.  They take it seriously and don't put up with anything that compromises their focus.

Cartier-Bresson adamantly insisted right up to the end that what he did was NOT Art. He was a journalist. He dismissed those applying the term "art" to his pictures. He felt that his photographic work was merely his gut reactions to moments in time that he had happened upon.
After retiring as a Photo-Journalist: "All I care about these days is painting-—photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing."

I'm afraid I'll have to respectfully disagree with him about whether any of his work was Art.  The work speaks for itself.

D. Brian Nelson wrote:

Yes, it does appear to be beyond you.  Fashion photography is a subset of commercial photography.  Instead of looking at those mostly commercial craftsmen you mentioned, you should be looking at Cartier-Bresson and Weston and Newton and artists who had damned little use for commercial photography.  (Yes, Weston did portraits to support himself and Newton took fashion assignments, though he often complained about having to do that.) 

I used to think fashion was the pinnacle of photography as well, and I still admire it done well.  And the guys you mention do it very well indeed.  But it remains commercial photography, more akin to Auto Trader shooting than to art.

(OK a caveat:  Newton shot fashion because of his art.  Avedon shot fashion then became an artist.  There is some grey area, but that same grey area exists between product shooting and art as well.)

-Don

P.S.  If you're interested in fashion photography, the only place that is exclusively focused on it, on the web, is The Fashion Only Forum at http://www.duroi.com/fashionforum/.  They take it seriously and don't put up with anything that compromises their focus.

Cartier-Bresson adamantly insisted right up to the end that what he did was NOT Art. He was a journalist. He dismissed those applying the term "art" to his pictures. He felt that his photographic work was merely his gut reactions to moments in time that he had happened upon.
After retiring as a Photo-Journalist: "All I care about these days is painting-—photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing."

I'm afraid I'll have to respectfully disagree with him about whether any of his work was Art.  The work speaks for itself.

Miss Anya wrote:
Art is whatever I say it is.

Judging from the images of you, I would say that you are pretty close to art personified.

Click Hamilton wrote:

That's OK. Lots of people around here claim to be models too.

You can't claim to be a model, if you have been photographed you are, though the artist/photogropher is not a passive action, unlike modeling - therefore it take an effort and a skill to become one.
PS:
I regret I started that post the stores are closing at 9, but I have to go shopping and I am late ...
I'll be back (c) State of California Governor

D. Brian Nelson wrote:
Yes, it does appear to be beyond you.  Fashion photography is a subset of commercial photography.  Instead of looking at those mostly commercial craftsmen you mentioned, you should be looking at Cartier-Bresson and Weston and Newton and artists who had damned little use for commercial photography.  (Yes, Weston did portraits to support himself and Newton took fashion assignments, though he often complained about having to do that.) 

I used to think fashion was the pinnacle of photography as well, and I still admire it done well.  And the guys you mention do it very well indeed.  But it remains commercial photography, more akin to Auto Trader shooting than to art.

(OK a caveat:  Newton shot fashion because of his art.  Avedon shot fashion then became an artist.  There is some grey area, but that same grey area exists between product shooting and art as well.)

-Don

P.S.  If you're interested in fashion photography, the only place that is exclusively focused on it, on the web, is The Fashion Only Forum at http://www.duroi.com/fashionforum/.  They take it seriously and don't put up with anything that compromises their focus.

100% accurate.
fashion is commercial photography and remains so whether engaged in by the crass commercialist or those with other ambitions.

Jay Bowman wrote:
I think you're taking my quote a bit out of context.  It's related directly to the idea of full artistic freedom on a major commercial campaign.  Certainly a photographer creates on any assignment, but to say that what they create is art (as opposed to eye-catching commercial imagery) is another matter entirely.  Perhaps they do, but on a commercial campaign, creating "art" isn't necessarily the point.

Also, to place the distinction of artist on a financially successful commercial photographer is a bit off base.  Being creative for a living and being an artist for a living are two different things, in my opinion.  I've seen some very creative fashion images.  But that doesn't automatically qualify them as art.

Right, it doesn't, but I just was trying to say that there is a correlation between the art and $.
Because the greater the "work of art", the more expensive it is, that is a simple exhange of values (art is being sold for $), but that doesn't yet mean that it has been created for $....

Now the more art costs (lets say a painting) the more money one could sell it for - therefore the higher the price the better the art.  So the part of the question was: how does a piece of art gains its value.

Jay Bowman wrote:
Are they now? 

You could make a rather compelling argument that the greatest works of art are inspired by love.  Or an equally valid argument for pain or hate.  I don't think struggle had any stronger influence in the "greatest works of art" than anything else.

I think they are, I think that struggle includes such feelings as: love, misery, hate, patriotism, even jelousy... those feelings bring us struggle though.  And to my best understanding, even though we all have these feelings, an artist is the one who can express them - and that's why it becomes so valuable, that a piece of art hold some emotion to it that artist was able to put into (a soul, if you will).
No?

D. Brian Nelson wrote:

Madcitychel wrote:
Another question, why is that the greatest art works were inspired by struggle?

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was done for money.  I think if one names "the greatest works of art" one would find a trail of tithes going to Rome then going to artists/craftsmen. 

Only in the last two centuries has art been disassociated from money, and even that's specious, as without anyone buying it, no art is worth a tinkle in a chamberpot, except to the artist.

-Don

See... that's, again on what you identify to be an "art".
because some peices have been only gaining its values throughout centuries. So if an art is "good" (again this was a part of my question - who decides what's good), more people would want to have it - and hence pay for it...

Le Beck Photography wrote:
Cartier-Bresson adamantly insisted right up to the end that what he did was NOT Art. He was a journalist. He dismissed those applying the term "art" to his pictures. He felt that his photographic work was merely his gut reactions to moments in time that he had happened upon.
After retiring as a Photo-Journalist: "All I care about these days is painting-—photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing."

that's a good example.
There are mostly opposites however, and even the greates artists were recognized after their death.
But this example proofs my point that essential quality of art is carry an emotion, that an artist had/was expressing while creating.

Mike Walker wrote:
...Fashion photographers who fail to please fade away and become wedding photographers or run a portrait studio or some other CRAFT oriented end of the photographic process...Mike

))