[Tom Edgerton]

There is no horse deader than the photography vs. life discussion, but I feel the need to get my licks in.

To Tim's point, cameras are only tools. When no one's holding them, they make nice paperweights.

In the hands of a master, photography can be as transcendent as painting. In the hands of an amateur, the results are well...amateurish. If my painting betrays photographic origins, and a lot of it does, it's my fault for not applying myself to mastery of the tools and the thinking, not a fault inherent in the tool itself. I had a European colleague who taught with me several years ago in the local community college, and he complained about his students, observing "Americans are constantly mistaking tools for skills." His students thought if they made an image on the computer, it was inherently better than an image made by hand.

This discussion gets hyperbolic awfully fast, and wild statements castigating or defending the camera as a tool usually just reveal the particular prejudices of the speaker and how comfortable and accomplished they are with it. Anyone who insists that all work, regardless of the artist, that has some tie to photographic reference is automatically inferior hasn't seen enough of what's out there. And anyone who insists that they can categorically identify work with photographic origins, regardless of the artist, is blowing smoke.

And I can't buy the notion that the quality of one's art is somehow a function of slavishly adhering to centuries-old materials and methods, ignoring anything currently available. If Vermeer could have mail-ordered from Dick Blick (or Old Holland, maybe), he would have. Burt Silverman spoke to this in a demonstration at PSOA, saying, "Spend more time trying to make great art, and if it's good, someone will be there to take care of it."

One's ability as an artist is the sum total of years of practice in a variety of situations with an array of tools, and mastery or lack of it resides in the mind and the heart, not in the toolbox. I agree that there is no substitute for working from life, and that there are no shortcuts. But why try to convince the world that an inanimate tool is the diabolic invention of Satan? The only thing that speaks for or against us and our ability is the thing on the wall, not what was in our hands when we made it.