Brachyglottis greyii & Rosa 'Fair Bianca'

 

I often listen to people say, “If I think it is art, it is art.” A variant is,”What I do is art because I think it is art.” I never pursue these statements and I keep quiet. Besides not wanting to offend I have a problem figuring out if what I do is art.

In that 20^th century Irving Pen, George Hurrell and other portrait photographers were deemed artists. They had a recognizable style. Cartier-Bresson is seen as an artist.

With the proliferation of street photography in this century (Cartier Bresson was a pioneer) there are so many phoitographers doing it that I am not sure that shooting a street scene with telephone can be art.

Sally Mann and Cindy Sherman lean in the direction of conceptual photography. Conceptual art, particularly in Vancouver is seen as art.

All the above is but a prologue to explore some of my flatbed scanner work which I do every day. Some say that if you do something “artistic” every day to satisfy yourself it is irrelevant if others think it is art or not.

What you see here is a Fuji medium format instant print (I call them Fujiroids) of one of my Rosemary’s favourite grey plants Senecio greii and English Rose, Rosa ‘Fair Bianca’. Rosemary’s plant has gone through a name change and it is now Brachyglottis greyii.

I found the Fujiroid in a pile and I wondered what it would look like scanned.

Is this art?