[JBrunner]

egos, here in this thread.

....an artist armed with a cheap digital camera, would make art more often than a photographer with a 4x5 and a nice b/w film.

Hogwash. Tools aren't art, and don't make an artist. The statement is bullpucky even if you reverse it. The terms "artist" and "photographer" are not mutually exclusive, either. A photographic artist is a much different animal than a painter, or a photographer. Being a painter, doesn't mean you are an artist. Artists are artists, and then they choose and learn their medium, and refine their technique. I am considered by some to be a photographic artist. I'm not arrogant or stupid enough to believe that as an artist I can do better than a studied painter at being artistic with a cheap fingerpaint set, because it is readily usable, and can express colors and patterns with little effort. That doesn't mean I can't produce art with it, but if I understood the medium, I would find my stubs and the butcher paper pretty limiting after a short time, and I'm probably not going to set the world on its ear, either. I might need to learn some things, maybe things, that in my literal infancy as a painter, I am not even aware of.
The attitude is pretty common in acedamia toward artistic photography, in that it is still a bit of a bastard child, not really understood by some "fine art" teachers, and of course those who confuse accessability, with ability, which is the real arrogance and ignorance, displayed in the referenced thread. What a load of school induced self absorbed unowhat.
(in regard to the last comment, its not altogether a slam, as I may have taken the same attitude about, oh say 25 years ago, when I knew next to nothing about photogaphy, but thought I knew it all, because I knew more than the guy on the street corner. I am currently in my photographic adolescense.)