Pet Peeves

"Your photograph looks like a painting........."

However well intentioned, statements like this are derogatory to old school photographers like myself who suffered through the days when photography was not broadly accepted as a fine art medium (I was around for the tail end of this in the late 60's).

Photographers in the first half of the century struggled long and hard to free itself from the perception that it was just the poor stepchild of painting and develop a uniquely photographic aesthetic. Remember F/64? Suggesting that imitating painting contains some higher aesthetic purpose for photographers is a very antiquated and long ago discarded idea.