But is it art?

I was thinking about this at length yesterday when I was running.

Is this "art"?

"Tomatoes"
That's an HDR image I made from a series of photographs I took last August.

Here. This is the basic photo of the image depicted above:

Is this art?
Of course, the work of Ansel Adams is art. He could create a masterpiece with a Brownie camera. He could and he did. Proving, by the way, it has nothing to do with equipment. Of course photography is "art". I never gave it much thought. Photographs hang in galleries. Framed photographs cover the walls of our homes and offices.

But when really, does a "snapshot" become a "work of art"?

Back in the day I had "mastered the medium" (at least I thought I did!). I used all kinds of different films for different reasons. I used one kind of film for portraits. Another for landscapes. Another for documentary work. I used technique and style to direct attention to what it was I saw. I'd use different chemical treatments and procedures (I had a darkroom too...) and papers and filters and, oh, all kinds of tools and techniques and there was never a shred of doubt in my mind; I was doing "art".

I don't know why it is I find digital photography so much different from chemical photography. It is for sure very different. Oh I think photographic film is a far superior medium than digital sensors and I can write a paper on that. But more than that, I sometimes wonder, as I tweak an image's color balance in Photoshop (aka "'shopping"), what's so different about that than say, using a filter while printing an image on paper?

I still haven't quite figured it out. I just don't feel like an artist when I'm using Photoshop. The passion and the extent of engagement is just so much different.

So. To answer my own question? Ya, I suppose it's art. But it's not as clear as I'd like.