as self-referential questioning.

Notably, many of
those who work in this way identify themselves
as artists who happen to use a camera, not as
photographers. This is photography as conceptual
art, and concept is being substituted for skill.
Understanding this makes it easier to fit “artless
composition” into the scheme of things, even
though most traditional photographers dislike
it. It is valid as art, but I would argue that it falls
outside the canon of photography.
It’s important to note at this point that art
photography increasingly has its own paradigm
and its own rhetoric, not to mention lexicon.
To a growing extent its aims and ideals are
diverging from those of photography practised
for professional or amateur reasons. This is
not a criticism, but an observation that affects
the way these two purposes of photography
have to deal with each other. In this light,
certain commentaries of art critics become
less confusing. So, when Graham Clarke, in the
Oxford History of Art’s The Photograph, written
in 1997, states that “The problem with Bresson
is that his images confound the critical eye” and
“Winogrand has the ability to freeze rather than
make still a moment”, both of which verge on
the ridiculous to a photographer, the problem is
solved when we realize that he is writing with the
rhetoric of art criticism and most certainly not
for photographers. Cartier-Bresson’s images do
not confound the photographer’s eye; rather we
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