Taking Pictures and Creating Art

Once upon a
time, when I began sharing my photos on Flickr I wrote these words on my profile page:

I believe that art is a magnet for emotion. The greater the emotional response to a work or art - be it music, sculpture, video and cinema, still photography, painting, drawing, or any other media, or the natural or artificial spacial environment - the purer the art. The purer the art, the closer it gets to truth.

Since the crash of my backup drive last week and the loss of some 2,000 images forever I've found myself contemplating the difference between taking pictures and making art. Is what I lost (and indeed what I have), art? Adding to my philosophical dilemma is the completion of renovations to our home last week that created a significant amount of empty wall space -- space begging for the correct "filler". So given the style of the room and the mood I wanted to capture I have also been thinking about what should go up on those walls. I want it to be artful. And I want it to be born through my camera lens. But I wonder: Will it be art?

What I do believe, as I wrote a couple of years ago, is that Art is an emotional trigger. It's a way of honing in on Truth. Exposing the deepest reality. In my secular disposition, I suppose it edges on personal spirituality. To get there, I think, the artist has to do more than simply create something pleasing -- to the eye or to the ear (or to the palate for that matter). What you create has to be something you believe in -- something you are connected to. Something you love. An artist has to make the observer see through his eyes, hear through her ears, feel with his hands, love what she loves. I'm not at all sure that I'm there yet. Might never be. But it's a pretty good goal in life, don't you think?