I think I've mentioned this before, but here goes again.

I have a hard time viewing photographic portraits as art. When presented with an image such as the Mona Lisa, or any of Van Gogh's self portraits, the connection is there. But with a photo, for me, the medium doesn't suggest portrait = art. I've seen gorgeous portraits, but I catagorize them as portraits, not art. Granted, they can be one in the same, but in my head, I am not equating them as such.

Well, yesterday I had my revelation. Every now and then I hit the book store for a few hours. Hardly ever buy anything, as I prefer to hit our local library network. So I'm sitting on the floor, paging thru some photography books. Hidden between two huge Anne Geddes books was a book titled "Women before 10:00 am" From the first image, I was drawn in. The book is a collection of photos take of women before 10 in the morning (obviously). Still in bed, in the shower, in the kitchen, with their kids/pet, cooking, that kind of thing. Things you do in the morning. There was nothing technically spectacular about them, although they were technically good images. They looked like they were shot all film, natural light, minimum of outside influence. Just these women in thier enviroment.

Anyway, it's always mentioned that art should envoke an emotion, and for the first time while looking at photographic portraits, I was struck with that.