Facebook: the fans and the critics

It’s pretty standard…you post a colorful sunset photograph on Facebook and you get a pile-on of “Likes”.  Perhaps like this very, very average image, to use sort of a generic example:

Sagrada Familia Sunrise. Barcelona, 2014

But, if you post something a bit more esoteric and without the splashy color–might I dare say, something slightly “artistic”–you can hear the crickets chirping. This, for example:

A Walk by the Roof (The Ramp). Barcelona, 2014

I would suggest that the vast majority of Americans are not educated about what constitutes decent art, and I include me, myself, and I in this criticism. (“The business of America is business“, not art, after all, so art education tends to be pretty low on the American priority list.) We all tend to react positively to a pretty picture so we reactively click the “Like” button… but we have not had enough training to understand that something else less coated in eye-candy sugar might be more subtle, or more complex, or more profound.

I distinctly remember looking at photographs from famous photographers when I was much younger and simply shrugging my shoulders in naive lack of understanding. “Looks like a snapshot to me. What’s the fuss?” I remember thinking. (Here’s one such “snapshot” I can’t believe I didn’t react to when I first saw it: “Child with hand grenade” by Diane Arbus).

But… after spending a whole lot of hours studying images over the past few years I can now say that my mind has clearly evolved. I am still no expert, but I am beginning to comprehend some of the more subtle layers that can exist in a photograph (and especially in collections of photographs as a body of work) that I certainly never would have noticed before. My ability to appreciate has evolved and continues to do so, especially in the area of my emotional response.

Yes, I still like the classic Ansel Adams or David Muench landscapes for their beauty and craftsmanship… but I also understand that photographs can say other things and they can come with a great many more layers of meaning and in a tremendous variety of styles. And I am much less tolerant of yet another pretty image captured from the same tripod holes as everyone else (unless it contains some unusual twist), and this criticism includes some of my own “copy-the master” images.

What is art, then? That is the question. Hmmm… that’s pretty much like asking, “What is love.” We’ll never really quite get there. It is indeed subjective. But then again, it isn’t. Maybe it’s both?

Perhaps the test is whether or not a photograph keeps calling you back for further contemplation or inspection… it connects to you in some deeper, emotional or intellectual way beyond just being a pretty, flashy picture. It invites you in and it is hard to leave. You always find something new in it. If you grow tired of an image over a few days, it probably lacks substance.

Having said all that, I think of my own collection of “keepers” and sigh. How many of them really are high-quality “keepers”? Very few…  very few.

That’s what is so lovely about this path of artistic expression… the path goes on forever. We’ll never really “arrive”, but we will always see rewarding progress if we keep up our relentless forward motion.

So, hasta mañana–until then, I’ll see you on Facebook!