Today we discussed the controversy surrounding photography as an art form, and it got me thinking about the distinction between photography that is considered art and photography that we call snapshots. It’s a difficult distinction to make, and because art can often be so arbitrarily defined, I like to leave the choice up to the artist. I might find certain photographs to be more artistically successful than others in terms of their composition or technique, but I wouldn’t dismiss those photos as ‘non-art’ simply because I find them unsuccessful. It’s easy to decide whether or not I enjoy or appreciate a photo, but when it comes to laying down a definite, concrete definition for art, I’m a little too skeptical of how practical that really is.
Beyond what the viewer sees in the aesthetics of a photo, I think its concept plays an important role in how the creator defines it (not that all art has to be conceptual, I just think artistic intention is often very much about concept). The photo above might seem like a typical, cliche mirror shot, but it in fact has a deeper personal meaning for me. It’s actually a recreation of the first self-portrait I ever took — the one that fostered my love for photography back in my sophomore year of high school, exactly four years ago. Like every other student in my class, I used a mirror for the self-portrait assignment, but I did get props for attempting to make it a bit more unique by capturing my ‘multiple selves’ using my mom’s vanity. I wanted to create a triple mirror shot and include some of my mom’s framed photos of me as a younger girl so the image contained more than a single, boring shot of my face covered with a lens. The praise I received for that photo — again, my first ever self-portrait and one of my first ever darkroom prints — is probably the reason I’ve stuck with the genre of self-portraiture ever since.
Reminded of this photo after a recent trip back to my high school (which usually results in my former photography teacher allowing me to sit in on his classes throughout the entire day), I decided to go home and recreate it, altering it slightly but sticking with the main idea. For that reason it holds a lot of nostalgia for me and has more concept to it than one might originally see in it. Personally, I don’t see a simple mirror shot in that first image above. I see four years of self-exploration through photography and my constantly fluctuating feelings throughout that journey. I see fond memories of high school and the depression that came with leaving it behind, the emotional and intellectual discoveries that followed, a changing body image, the attachment issues I’m still coming to terms with, and a whole lot of that unfortunately necessary growing up nonsense. I don’t know what sort of a difference that will make for any viewer of this photo, but for me, its meaning makes it more interesting and more worthy of the label ‘art.’
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