Luke S. at last year's Kevin Gatons' Memorial Day Kids' Race

Art is subjective – even its definition can be. I might think the world of Jackson Pollock and Jackson Browne; of Chuck Close and Chuck Mangione; of Annie Leibovitz and Annie Lennox. And you might think they all stink. As an English teacher, I always hear the groans when we start a poetry unit — but I hate poetry is a typical reaction. My response? No, you hate the poetry you’ve read. We have different tastes, different things we enjoy. This is no different than our taste in photography.

Yesterday, I was reading a forum hosted by Popular Photography (actually, it was from their Facebook feed), in which the question was asked whether or not you like HDR photography. (Disclaimer: that link will take you to an HDR example from a friend of mine: Joe Smolenski). Wow are people divided on this. Love it or hate it, it brought out the comments, that’s for sure. I tend to agree with those who say that they love it when it’s done well and question it when it’s sloppy. I’ve certainly seen both and would love to experiment some more with it as it’s not a medium I’ve really delved into. In the meantime, I continue to look at models for inspiration, just as I do in my every day photography. I think it’s important that we don’t let our egos take over, that we realize that we can learn something new every single day.

I posted the picture above  because I have heard both ends when it comes to critiquing it. I love the look on Luke’s face. Sheer determination – I think it’s telling that story for sure. But it’s also got some (obviously) distracting elements to it. I’ve heard plenty concerning this and these criticisms are absolutely valid. I still love it, though. Would I have preferred not to have the other two children in the picture? Absolutely. At the same time, I liked it too much to just chuck it into the ‘delete pile’ so to speak.

It’s all in the eye of the beholder – perhaps we all need to get off our high horse at times and keep this in mind.

“And we’ll fill in the colors of each other’s paint by number dreams.”

Jackson Browne wrote that line – for me, this is the definition of art…

Would love to hear your thoughts on this subject…