After you've mastered your craft, your art and have the necessary skills, the next step should be: What am I trying to say?
In my opinion, this is the measure of an artist and can be applied to any artistic discipline.
If I'm really successful, when viewing my images, you'll feel what I wanted you to feel. At the very least, you should feel something: joy, excitement, interest, fear or even disgust. If there's no response, then I haven't accomplished what I set out to do. Even if I'm shooting for my own enjoyment, my goal is to still convey a message or a feeling; the very essence that drew me to want to take or make the image in the first place.
When I do commercial photography, I'm paid to get the client's point across, again this is the sole point of taking the image. Shooting my personal work allows me to get my "message" out there and although this may sometimes seem like an egotistic pursuit, it's really the only reason to "chase the light" and make an image. It satisfies the need to communicate while doing it in my chosen medium.
As a pure artistic, non-photographic example, my wife is a sculptor and in my opinion it's a really difficult medium to work in and personally very few sculptures have ever grabbed my attention or interest. But her work moves me, each piece transcends the process and actually seems to be alive with a life of its own (see www.tamaeframe.com). This illustrates my point; she has the skill and the artistic ability to be able to translate her thoughts and feelings through her hands and into an inanimate material molding it into an object, giving it a "life" and purpose.
Even through it's a different artistic medium, that's my goal with my photography (especially my fine art images).
As with most people drawn to photography, I'm a visual person. In most cases, I would rather observe than participate. But..., if you have the knowledge or have participated in what you're photographing, then the final results will reflect your experience (case in point, my martial arts photography). That experience increases your ability to communicate your message.
Photography can be broken down into many divisions: snapshots, photojournalism, commercial and fine art. Snapshots are what most people are familiar with as far as recording the events of their life. Photojournalism captures events in order to inform and hopefully help change the world. Commercial photography can be broken down into many subheadings (portraits, fashion, advertising, just to name a few). But regardless of the area, every picture shows a view of the world that reflects the photographer's point of view, even if the image wasn't manipulated. Simply because it all comes down to what the photographer has decided to include or exclude when taking the image, the photographer will always show the subject from their perspective (consciously or sub-consciously).
Therefore the final result is all about communication and how well I (or any photographer or artist) is able to use their medium to express their message.
Look at the attached images and let me know if think I've succeeded in what I've asked you to do.
DCF
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