This is not writing for no ink has been laid on paper. Writing is dead.

Is Pizza delicious?

Yes.

Should the “P” in “Pizza” be capitalized?

Technically no, but then again if you consider god a divine entity, I bet you capitalize the “G” in h(H)is name. And maybe for you Pizza seems a ridiculous thing to put faith, love and devotion into, but I must ask, what does god have that Pizza doesn’t? Does Pizza spread love, and unity, and create a moral grounding for its followers? Why it sure does. Everyday Pizza sacrifices itself unto its followers, allowing us to devour its deliciousness as a community. But before we do such a thing we must ask ourselves how to divide such a holy entity so that all parts are equal, and also in which shape should we worship this divine creation, party squares, or triangle slices? Whichever decision you make you are rewarded with the loving warmth of cheesy delicacy. Although Pizza’s mission is to spread love and unity, it does not refrain from reprimanding its followers. A fresh Pizza teaches us patience and resistance to temptation, but what happens when we cannot resist those urges? We are met with a piping hot slap of cheese and sauce on the chin, which for repeat offenders may result in blisters and or scarring marking them forever as individuals who lack essential self control. More importantly, Pizza is all inclusive. Anybody can enjoy a delicious Pizza, there are no rules as to who can or cannot partake in the sharing of a Pizza. Pizza can even change form to accommodate followers with allergies, or who have chosen to not eat dairy products. Furthermore Pizza is genderless and thus negates a cultural bias towards one gender. It is this all inclusive nature that allows Pizza to spread its teachings to all corners of the world. Pizza is and forever will be the hero of society as the chief disseminator of love and unity, and also a vessel for nutrients so that it’s followers can live long and spread its teachings throughout the world.

Is photography over?

No.

Is painting over?

No.

Despite the fact that it is an old medium whose ability to recreate reality was rendered null when photography was invented. But painting didn’t die, modernism happened, post-modernism happened.

Photography is not over, and never will be. It will constantly change as all forms of art do (to remain contemporary, perhaps.) But, it can never be dead. Art is only a tool to contextualize and understand the world around it and disseminate an internal experience out onto the world. Unless an art form is suddenly unable to do that, it will never be dead. 

Also, as long as the world around us is changing, all art forms will continue to be contemporary, and thus will be “alive”

For example, here are two similar paintings:

Jacques Louis David, “Bonaparte Crossing The Grand Saint-Bernard Pass, 20 May 1800” Oil on canvas 232cm x 271cm

Kehinde Wiley, “Colonel Platoff on His Charger” 2008, Oil on canvas 9’ x 9’

These are two pictures of men on white horses. The visual similarities are endless, yet they are not the same. If painting were dead, as it is proposed that photography may be, then this Kehinde Wiley painting would not have any value to society. Is that not what death is – the moment you become purposeless/valueless to society? Yet, because the world is ever changing Kehinde’s painting is different than David’s and because David’s painting is not a piece of history, Kehinde’s painting also bears significant value for its references to contemporary culture, and also for it’s references to it’s own history. 

As I said before, as long as the world around is changing, there will always be space for art (in any form, photography included) to interpret that world. Even art forms that may be outdaded or “dead” can still be relevant to today as seen in Kehinde Wiley’s paintings. 

Here is an example of the same happening in photography:

Unknown Artist, “H.E. Hayward and slave nurse Luoisa” 1858, Ambrotype

Myra Greene, Untitled (Character Recognition series), 2004-07, Ambrotype,  3x4 inches

Here are two photographs of black women made using the exact same process. But, the difference is that the second photograph is using this process to relate this historical happening to contemporary life. 

Vince Aletti - I agree with a lot of what Aletti has to say, and if you agree with these points, then the most of the other responses to this question, and the question itself become irrelevant and lacking in their understanding of what photography is and art's ability to remain relevant despite technological advances.

George Baker essentialy wrote, “This question is stupid, but I will still ramble on about some other bullshit.”

Walead Beshty - If I am understanding this intensely pedantic response correctly, then I agree with Walead. From what I can decipher, he seems to be mirroring Baker’s views, that the question is irrelevant, and that the issue is not whether or not photography is dead, but rather, what is it that can be defined as photography by institutions? He sort of explains that this question is as well irrelevant and goes on about the anxiety of being able to categorize art into a specific medium. Again feelings that are reflected in Baker’s “Photography’s Expanding Field.” I agree with what he has to say, especially this portion of the text, “Why do we maintain photography departments within art schools, most absurdly graduate art programs, when these professional distinctions barely exist within contemporary art?”

diCorcia - “The real question should be "Is Art over?" To me, it is more like:"Was it ever relevant"? To that I say Photography has always been an unwelcome bedfellow to Art, which is for most of the world irrelevant, and Photography has been, and remains, relevant. So, if it's over then the issue has to be looked at as either a precursor to the demise of Art's sanctity, or the liberation of Photography from the threadbare criteria that Art History has imposed.”

This seems a sort of nihilistic view about the worth of art in society, but, being quite the nihilist myself, I find it interesting to think about.

Also, I can’t help but see so many connections between my own work and this statement diCorcia makes, “Photography, a mechanical form of looking, is intrinsically limited in what it can show. There lies the wisdom. The current crisis is partially caused by attempts to extend Photography's capability. Maybe it will succeed and show us something new we don't really need to see, or maybe it will fail and be the wiser for it.”

Peter Galassi - I feel like his views mirrored a lot of what I had to say earlier.

“And, whether or not anyone actually believes that all mediums have now become equal, is that any reason to suppress the distinctness of any one of them? There is a difference between anything being possible and everything being the same.”

Blake Stimson - Implies a difference between digital photography and analog photography. I wonder, is there any difference between a static image of something that is made with a digital camera and that made with an analog camera, despite the differences in process of its creation? If I take a photograph on a film camera scan the negative and print on an inkjet printer what is the difference (besides grain structure) between that and an inkjet print of a digital photograph? There is none, Blake Stimson isn’t arguing whether or not photography is dead he is arguing whether or analog photography is dead, which is not the question being asked.

Corey Keller -  “For much of the 20th century to self-identify as a photographer (rather than an artist) was to take a deliberate political stance, and remarkably, it still is, despite the enormously important role photography plays in both the art world and the real world.”

I think that in our current situation it would be more of a stance for a “photographer” to self-identify as an “artist” in an attempt to say that which has already been accepted “photography is art” but more importantly it is to say, “there is no need for a distinction between photographer/photography and artist/art”

Trends in comments:

Talk about photography becoming something more than itself. A conversation that we have had many times about how all art forms are becoming one entity, used together. 

Questioning of the “truth” of photography being “over” which really is a dead conversation.

Connections to the physicality of photography. Where something is not photographic unless it is physically present. An idea which I disagree with completely. I personally feel that photography and the process of making a print are two completely separate entities and that what photography really is is to make a photograph, not a print. Gary Winogrand made loads of photographs, many of which were never turned into prints, or even developed. But that doesn’t matter. The print is only a way to translate a photograph into a means that is easily viewed and understood, but again is separate from a photograph. In the digital world a photographic negative does not need to be translated, like slide film (except slide film would be hard to look at by many people because of it’s small size, digital photographs don’t have this issue)

I have a friend who writes a blog in which he curates a group of artists he finds on the internet, and from a flickr pool. He does not have a gallery space where one can come and see the prints in a physical form, they exist only online. But does this take away their definition as photographs? No.

Photography is not over, the attachment to objects is.