>Patrick L. wrote:

>> In my previous "how to meter this shot" thread, which another fellow

>> restarted, I note that there were posters who admired the shot, and

>> others who trashed it.

>>

>> No doubt there are obvious stinko shots that most, perhaps, would

>> toss, but there seems to be a definite area of photography where

>> quality is, like beauty, in the eyes of the beholder.

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003 09:18:56 -0500, Robert Feinman <robertdfeinman@netscape.net> wrote:

>

>If you want to see a disconnect between the "quality" of the photo and the

>appreciation, look at the gallery scene. For example, there is a upcoming

>auction at Swan gallery for a Julia Cameron picture with an estimated price of

>about $20,000. Once a photographer has been *certified great* by the art scene

>the sky is the limit.

Um, being an admirer of JC's technically rather crude

images (and of Bill Brandt's often technically-poor but

technically-appropriate images, and sometimes even of

Cartier-Bresson's techniically-terrible-and-technically-

inappropriate images [as seen in the originals, not in

the carefully-corrected reproductions...;-]), $20k seems

rather modest compared with the outrageously-inflated

prices for some art. I think there oughta be a legal

"cap" of mebbe $100k for ANY single piece of art. It

is hard for me to conceive of any piece of art, no

matter what it is, of having a true worth of, say,

$40,000,000 - there isn't that much pleasure/appreciation

in the universe, let alone in one painting...! ;-)