I happened to come across this thread:
Another person with too much money and too much time - PentaxForums.com --
Originally posted by Murra54 ...
I thought the two images posted there were absolutely terrific pictures. No doubt the author did use postprocessing, but whether he did or not, the critical thing for me was that I couldn't tell. I didn't really care, or even think about it. I was taken with how well the bird in the first picture had been captured taking off into flight. It was only because I'd been thinking of our discussion in this thread that I got analytical. Then I noticed how well the bird had been placed within the depth of field, the focus and lighting were perfect; the textures of the materials depicted felt real to me. And in the second picture, I thought about how the random-looking arrangement of the leaves and the feather spoke about what life on this planet is like, in a more general sense. The lighting and the subject conveyed a mood of understanding the transitory nature of the natural world. That, to me, is art. It communicates something nonverbally that one could never get across in mere words. Even if the photographer didn't intend the message I received, it was my experience in looking at the pictures that made them art. I didn't have to get past the distractions of obvious technique to be able to appreciate what the photographer had captured. I saw a bird; and I saw a leaf and feather; and these things spoke to my heart.
On the other hand, there's a lot to be said for what my wife (quoting her grandmother) calls, "DAY-core". Not all visual "art" has to be aesthetically profound. Lots of the whizz-bang stuff really does look neat, and I admire the skill of the people who make it. I reckon I'm just greedy for stuff that teaches me something, so I don't have much use for the decorative arts, myself.
Clearly, I've been talking about my own point of view in all this, and there can be no right or wrong answer. And to me, the point of such a discussion is the opportunity to learn new stuff from others whose opinions I respect and value. It's not about who's good or who's bad, or whether someone's sense of self ought to be called into question because someone else has differing tastes. As has already been observed, none of us perceives reality directly, we don't see all the colors or hear all the frequencies. Each of us has built his own model of the universe in his head, and the value of sharing, both through art and discussion, some revelation of the differences among us can help us improve our own mental models. So I don't presume to be judging other peoples' work or criticizing anyone. It is my opinion that anyone who is not still changing and growing, and those trapped by the illusion that their mental model is reality, are already dead, and that life itself defines our priorities. So I'm talking about what I find helpful for me in my own journey/process as an invitation to discourse.