the insistence that picture-taking is first of all the focusing of a temperament, only secondarily of a machine, has always been one of the main themes of the defense of photography
Meaning . . .
photography is a supreme opportunity for self-expression, far superior to that offered by painting.
All that photography's program of realism actually implies is the belief that reality is
hidden . . .
And
thus,
must
be
unveiled
photographers feel obliged to protest photography's innocence, claiming that the predatory attitude is incompatible with a good picture
an “instrument of love and revelation” --Ansel Adams's description of the camera [picture-taking is in any way an aggressive act]
But it is impossible to hold the line
For it is in the very nature of photography that it be a promiscuous form of seeing
photography generates works that can be called art:
one can make passport pictures,
weather photographs,
pornographic pictures,
X-rays,
wedding pictures,
and Atget's Paris.
Y E T . . .
Photography is not an art like, say, painting and poetry—photography is not, to begin with, an art form at all. Like language, it is a medium in which works of art (among other things) are made.
It is inevitable that more and more art will be designed to end as photographs:
works of art that require subjectivity, can lie, give aesthetic pleasure
…Now all art aspires to the condition of photography