From Jorg Colberg's blog "Conscientious", a posting entitled "when the medium becomes the message":
In my six years of blogging, there is one post that I started to write maybe up to ten times, and each time, I refrained from posting it. Maybe it's time to get it out of my system. It's not even anything particularly interesting, even though I'm sure some people might disagree.
I sometimes get an email with a link suggestion and a comment along the lines of "these photos are great, they use [add your favourite process here]". I don't care much about the process when looking at photography (unless the process is an integral part of the photography, which is almost never the case). What I mean by that is that whatever it took to produce a photograph does not determine whether the result is good or bad.
Using a so-called toy camera, for example, doesn't automatically produce a great photo. A light leak or a soft lens might contribute to what makes a particularly photo good, but that doesn't mean that if you buy a Diana camera (which are now in production again and sold for way too much money - seriously, if you want one buy a vintage one on Ebay) you're guaranteed good photos.
The same is true for large-format cameras. There almost is a cult of large-format photography out there. It's true, large-format cameras can lead to very spectacular results, but using a large-format camera is no guarantee for that.
Or take vintage/alternative photography processes, many of which are notoriously hard to use. But as before, using a wet-plate collodion-type process (or whatever that might be called) does not guarantee good photographs.
For me, photography is an art form and not a craft (not that there's anything wrong with crafts - I'm just not as interested in crafts as in art). How a photograph is produced I find not all that interesting (which probably in part explains why I don't share the wide-spread rejection of digitally created work). At the end of the day, I am interested in the image.
The image is made with a process, so if you're interested in the image, you'll know more about it if you know something about how it's made. The process isn't all there is to know, but it's not irrelevant.
In a sense, this guy is right. I am just an amateur photographer, but used to be a professional musician. The music fan really does not care what brand, size, vintage, wood, etc., the drums are. It is mostly the musicians (amateur and pro) and some really discerning music connoisseurs that (1) can tell the difference, (2) appreciate the difference. Most of the time, even if the audience can hear something unique in the sound of the instrument, they are not able to relate it to any particular feature of the instrument. Something either sounds great or it doesn't. I suspect the same may be true in photography.
The artwork has as much depth as the creator will allow.
If an artwork focuses in one of its characteristics, then that characteristic will take over the artwork and the rest will be overwhelmed and even obliterated. If an artwork has the emphasis on the skills and process, then that said process is the artwork and the image/sound/whatever becomes secondary or even irrelevant. Same with aesthetics and philosophy. If an artwork is overly sentimental, it becomes that sentiment, if it is overly political, it becomes a political message, if it is to display a new experiment, a difficult technique, a skillful artist/artisan, then it becomes a display of that technique.
An artwork should not be devoted only to the process, the message, or in just one thing, otherwise it is shallow and how I use to say "a piece of gum that is discarded after the sweetness is over".
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aristotelis grammatikakis www.arigram.gr black & white film is sexy
An image without process is a concept, and a process without an image is a tech demo. The best are somewhere between, where the artist has taken a concept and applied an appropriate process to it to create a work of art. And even for a "non-process" like shooting from the hip, everything pre-set, or dripping paint on a canvas with a stick from ten feet in the air requires practice and mastery to extract consistent results that communicate the artist's concept in a coherent, perceptible way.
I think that someone with knowlege of photography and process would care, but your average joe probably wouldn't...and I do think there are less average joe's looking at prints and more average joe's posting images online
Process for process sake is pretty much useless IMO. Process doesn't make the image. A photographer not in control of their work or "vision" isn't going to be any more so using a different process.
On the other hand, different processes can open other avenues to the person expressing themself and perhaps awaken something in them they had not known existed. Some excellent photographers have worked the same "angle" ... formula, process and format over and over to the point of exhaustion and long after they had anything to say. Using different processes can help in keeping vision fresh and making things fun again. Personally I find that using different processes keeps me interested in continuing with photography in general. Even though I love making them, I couldn't imagine having to face a lifetime of square format, black and white prints!
While I would agree that average joes wouldn't know/care about the process, I do think that people are exceptionally well-tuned bullshit sniffers, to use a popular term. They can tell when an image is all about the process, or all about the concept, lacking execution. They just don't have the vocabulary to articulate it, so the response comes out, "pretty picture... pretty boring picture" or "That looks like something my six year old could do!".
Well, I think there are two perspectives in the statement of the original post. One is the artists point of view and the other is a viewer of the work that has no attachment to the image other than looking at it.
The process an artist uses is a very intimate one. A personal journey using hand coated, silver, oil on canvas, watercolor, acrylic, large format or what ever. The artist has a building excitement as the piece evolves before their eyes, sort of like a novel that builds to the climax. In that case the process is just as important as the final image, to the artist. It becomes an emotional experience as well as artistic expression.
The other person is just a casual viewer of the image. They may not have any clue what it took to make the image but they just love it for what they see before their eyes. A lot of people are happy with an offset press version of an image a great image from the local department store as they would be with a hand made (slaved over) image from the artist themselves. Process doesn't matter to them, just how it ended up. "this will look perfect over my couch."
Let's talk about this... 
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