As I work to increase my online presence for my art, I’ve joined some groups on Fine Art America, and, scrolling through the images people have submitted, I’m discouraged by the number of people who simply take a photo and apply a Photoshop filter to it and call it “art.”
Taking a photo like this:
And adding a filter like this…
Or this…
…doesn’t make it a better photo or worthy of being called art. It takes no real skill. Yes, it’s fun and easy to do to make your personal photos kinda neat, but that’s where it should end. Don’t try to sell it. And certainly don’t try to claim that it’s a painting. There are a few people I’ve stumbled across who post these kind of images and say that they’re “paintings” when they’re very clearly just Photoshopped pictures. It literally took me 30 seconds to create, save and post both images. To create one of my photo-realist paintings takes hours, days, and sometimes weeks, not seconds. It takes skill and patience. It takes thought.
Sorry, but this shit just drives me crazy. I love photography. Generally, it’s what I buy because I know I’ll never be in that exact place in that exact circumstance to recapture that exact image. Good photography doesn’t need to be heavily edited. Edited some, yes, absolutely, but edited with thought and to the least amount necessary to create a good composition.
So “yes yes yes” to photography, but keep it natural and label it properly as such, or if you’re going to edit it heavily, do something other than slapping a quick filter on it and calling it a day. Really push it – add some layers, at least. Okay, sorry, end of rant. Please resume your regularly scheduled programming.
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