originality

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On originality

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

There seems to be quite a bit of buzz in the photography blogosphere lately on what constitutes art and–perhaps more timely–what is original.

David Leland Hyde has a great post summarizing others’ blog posts here, and leaves us with a question: Why do you photograph landscapes?  There are some great comments in the thread.  Incidentally, if you’re not regularly reading his blog, you should be.

On reading this, I know I’ve thought about this many times, and am happy to see this dialogue between photographers.  I’m reminded of a few of my past blog posts as well:

The Icons

The Icons, reinterpreted

And finally, some thoughts on inspiring your creativity.

Ultimately, none of this may matter to you; art and originality are subjective.  You may well say, “I enjoy it, and I like my photos…I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”  There’s certainly nothing wrong with this stance, but for me, it does matter.  Why do I photograph nature, and landscapes in particular?  Regardless of your opinion, I think its good to take a step back and evaluate your art from time to time.  Many thanks to David et al. for forcing me to do that!