Photography: Artist vs technician

Mr. Mark wrote:
"Siddhartha Jain" wrote

So here's what I am wondering. Does photography have different sides
that attracts people with different leanings?

IMO this is one of the more interesting observations I've read in this
group. And the answer is yes. My collection of friends who are very into
photography come from all different backgrounds and each of them has their
own expressive style - some would even say that they don't have an
expressive style because saying things like that sound artzy to them and
they don't want to be considered artzy.

Something I found interesting is a guy on one of these groups talking
about how his does simply documentary street scenes, with the intent
that they be valuable historical documents of life in our time. He was
insistent that there was no art to it, he simply picked a
'representative scene' and strove for perfect technical capture. They
were quite nicely composed. The boring technical approach can produce
good art in fact. The art was in the honesty and care.

I come from a fine art background but also shoot a lot of pictures for
technical documentation of various plant species. That's what I love
about photography is the blend of art & technique & good results can be
achieved at either extreme.

--
Paul Furman
http://www.edgehill.net/1
san francisco native plants