One of the reasons I seldom (um, never?) comment on the "art" of photography is that so few people seem actually capable of using the vocabulary properly. There's been a lot of talk on a couple of blogs lately about "visual metaphors". Sadly, it would appear that the actual definition of "metaphor" eludes people. Paul Maxim, an undoubtedly very nice guy, would be a case in point. He confuses photos of a thing with a comparative reference to that thing. For example, he feels that Dorothea Lange's photo of a migrant farmworker is a compelling visual metaphor of the Depression. Well, it's not. It's a photograph of someone affected by the Depression, which means that it's a photograph of the Depression. A visual metaphor (in this case, a photograph) for the Depression would be a photograph of something else entirely that nevertheless calls to mind the Depression and its effects. An extremely unsubtle example would be a grindstone.

You can't discuss art if you're not familiar with at least the basics of language. All these people do is toss around polysyllabic words in hopes of sounding smart. Which they could very well be. But, if someone uses language unintelligently, well, it's kinda hard to tell, isn't it?