Want To Be Original?

[Oldboy]

We have a monthly judging session at the club and occasionally some bumptious prat will ask if the author of the image being judged is present and further ask why the image was taken. What moved the author emotionally to press the shutter at that precise moment. When this question is asked of me I find it delightfully deflating to answer "Well it just seemed a good idea at the time".

I remember reading a story years ago about a chap who was always rushing around. He never had time to relax as he was always in a hurry. One day a friend of his was crossing a busy road when he tripped and twisted his ankle. He lay there in the road as a big lorry came bearing down on him. Suddenly the chap dashed out and lifted him to safety. As he lay there been attended to by a doctor, he looked over and saw his friend strolling off completely relaxed for the first time in his life. The point of the story was his friend had been rushing the whole of his life to be there at the precise moment to save his friends life. So, your answer to the bumptious prat is, you had been preparing yourself all your life to take that image at the time. 

[Reinardina]

So, your answer to the bumptious prat is, you had been preparing yourself all your life to take that image at the time. 

Yes, that would deflate him too, I think.

Sadly, I have never mastered the in-depth, pompous, highfalutin language required to describe art. Occasionally when I enter photographs for something, I struggle with the 'artist's statement.'

[anglefire]

Forgive me, I;ve not read the article or much of the thread, but I have a theory on art and what turns something into art.

Money.

Put a picture up for a tenner and it is a picture.

Put the same picture up for 10 grand and it becomes art.

[Reinardina]

Forgive me, I;ve not read the article or much of the thread, but I have a theory on art and what turns something into art.

Money.

Put a picture up for a tenner and it is a picture.

Put the same picture up for 10 grand and it becomes art.

That's very true.

Same principle even works for cheap souvenir tat.
A cousin of mine used to run a souvenir shop, and one item the 'traveller' had assured her, would sell like hot cakes, did not sell at all.
When he visited next, she told him to take the stuff back. He took one look, and told her she was selling it far too cheap!
It was duly 'priced up,' and from a piece of tat nobody wanted, it was suddenly transformed into the quality item everyone was proud to take home.