Amateur vs. Professional: The digital artist

In today’s society, digital media is an ever present and highly accessible tool available to the everyday computer user. As a result of this convenience, amateur digital artists are able create impressive works with relative ease within a fraction of the time formerly taken. Imaging and design software along with comprehensive online tutorials, allow beginners to learn the basics, as ­­well as the detailed tricks, and photo-sharing and art community websites, allow them to share them with the world. As ideal as this sounds, professional artists, who due to this progression in technology, are finding it much more difficult to make their living. The question must be asked- has digital media officially blurred the line between ‘the amateur’ and ‘the professional’?

For the purpose of this essay, A 'professional’ as determined by The American Heritage Dictionary is a person “Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career” and “Having or showing great skill; expert”. These professionals usually have had a formal training in their field and use it as their primary source of income.
The Random House Dictionary defines an 'amateur’ as: “A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.” and “one that lacks the skill and formal training of a professional, as in an art.” This however, as this essay will explore, does not mean that the amateur cannot make profit from their “pastime”.

The creative software available now, with is comprehensive and easy to use interface, is allowing amateurs to successfully design artwork that, in the past, was left to the trained eye of a professional. Payed programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator , and Coral Paintshop Pro and DrawCoral Paintshop Pro and Draw, is becoming much more affordable and in some cases, free, depending of the computer user’s level of criminal activity, downloading from file sharing websites. There are also free applications like GIMP.org which make it even easier to access a form of creative editing software.
This is great for people who want to get into creating and designing for a leisure activity or hobby however many professional artists believe there is a distinct difference between the work of a trained artist compared to a self taught artist.
“High-quality, professional work usually bears a distinct ability to be subtle—to show restraint, and avoid garishness. That’s not to say, of course, that this work is boring. Instead, it is impactful and compelling without being overt.” (Croft,2009)(Croft, 2009)
Despite the aptitude of these professional artist is seems an amateurs work to the general public’s eye can be just as effective, rendering the subtleties of a professional almost obsolete.

The real advancement however, is in the online communities that nurture amateur artists. Deviantart.com, for example, allows its users to upload their creations into their personal galleries, allowing the rest of the community to comment, critique, and add them as a favourite (fave). It is this action in which the amateur artist begins to create a following, becoming a well known name in the online art community (Kostakos, 2009). Another example of this art community type website can be found in flickr.com which Josef Kolbitsch from the University of Technology, Austria (2006) describes as allowing users to store, organise, and share photos. Users can upload their photos to a server, add comments and leave notes inside pictures. The key element in the system, however, are arbitrary tags attached to photos, which in the same way Deviantart.com uses ‘faves’, which are used to search for the piece as well as find similar images the viewer may also like.
This sort of website has been successful in launching many amateurs far beyond their title, moving them into an area the questions when the artist moves from amateur to professional. An example of this can be found in one Lara Jade Coton,19, who has grown into a celebrity status in the online photography communities since she posted her first imagine on deviantart.com in 2004.
“From the age of fourteen, I was already aware of what the internet could do. However, at the start my photography was purely a hobby. I posted my work online because I enjoyed being part of a community. I suddenly started getting more and more comments and gradually, as the years went on I had quite a few followers!”­­­­
This is fantastic news for fellow aspiring photographers, however at what point do people like Lara Jade Coton take over from professional artists and photographers who have studied and trained in the field for decades?

The final blow to the professional artist comes down to the very core of the words, which is the ability to survive off of their art. There are an increasing number of online galleries showcasing the work of up-and-coming artists, as well as extensions of the very art communities previously mentioned, which allow the purchase of prints and originals of absolutely anyone’s work that has enabled the option. This ultimately allows art collectors to choose from literally millions of artists, at an extremely affordable price, in the comfort of their own home. Undoubtley, this affects the rate that young and new art collectors visit galleries in a time where such establishments are struggling already.

In conclusion today’s advances in digital media has allowed the amateur artist to grow and flourish, gaining reputation and following, opening up the opportunities to sell and produce their work, and gain many unforseen passions in pursuing their hobbies and passions. While there will always be a place for the trained masters of art and design, it will certainly be much harder to solely rely on the field as an income.

Task 8

Sign an e-petition- I “signed” a fur trade petition. If you want to feel motivated to do so, go here and watch this.
Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site- I commented an article by Kristy Clements found at the couriermail.com
What is Barack Obama up to today? Obama is commenting on the protester gathering at the g-20 summit.
Find who your local, state and federal representatives are- Vicky Darling, Vickey Darling, Wayne Swan

What do you think of the Australian Government's plans to censor the Internet?
I think its absolutely ridiculous. Not only will this mean blocking of websites that the public should have the freedom to utilise but it will waste millions of dollars of taxpayers money, and slow down Internet access, which must mean at my house, it will stop. ha.

What place does censorship have in a democracy?
Very lttle.

Week 8

The lectures and tutorials weren’t actually on this week do to the union strikes, thanks for letting me go all the way in to Nathan to find that out. No, I really, really, appreciate it.
Anyway if there had of been a lecture on today not only would I have been the only one at it, but we would have learnt about e-democracy and politics, which I’m not completely familiar with, and probably don’t want to be, because one politics class is enough honestly. But due to my background with the News and Politics class I found the fact that Politicians have cottoned on to the popularity of the internet are using it to blow their trumpets, where the demographic can be quite a lot younger than their usual audiences, making their campaign even stronger.

Lecture 7

For the week 7 tutorial Adam dressed to theme. He wore a creative commons logo t-shirt, and a Linux hat, complete with the cute little penguin. I appreciate he made the effort to co-ordinate his wardrobe with his teachings.
So as my lecturer’s shirt suggests, creative commons was the topic.
Just in case you didn’t know (where have you been?), Creative Commons is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright licenses known as "Creative Commons licenses". These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.
So basically it allows other users to access, re-create, add upon or remix music, pictures, writings, and video. I think it’s a great way to build a creative community based on the internet where things aren’t so strict and confining, where artists can share and collaborate, and also get themselves out there as a name, especially for musicians.

Task 6

Lecture 6

This weeks topic was on Consuption and Production. Consumption can be defined in two different ways, small screen and big screen. Consumption using the small screen involves media players which can be either shared or privately consumed or personal media players and mobile phones which are both generally private. Big screen consumption consists of the personal computer, cinema and television. Through these mediums we consume.
Also the point was raised that we as consumers are ever becoming the producers, which I found interesting, as it makes you wonder- will consumers produce so much that they will render professional producers useless? I’m not even sure if that makes sense.

Week 5

To compare the differences between instant messaging services (MSN, AOL, etc) and 3d chat-room (second life, imvu, active world) is really quite simple. Despite the obvious visual addition 3d chat allows you, they both aim to allow you to communicate. However it is who you communicate with that separates these two services in different worlds (almost literally). MSN, most commonly, allows you to add people to your contact list, by entering their email address- which means you must have some knowledge of who the person is. How else would you obtain the address silly?
3D chat-rooms however is almost free-range in the way it works- you log on, create an avatar, and go about meeting new people, building houses and doing all sort of other things in a strange virtual world. The avatar you select is not meant to be a replica of your face, in fact, its encouraged that you create a new persona- maybe you’d like to be “Lyd Vicious, the non-conforming, atomic-pink hair coloured punk”, or perhaps “Destiny Sizemore, the sexy stripper trying to break into the acting game”. The point is to create a new person, meet people you have absolutely no idea of who they may be, and the fact is Brad Witt, the more handsome, funnier version of Brad Pitt, could really be some 54 year old, greasy haired, Slovakian man.
Personally, I think both are equally safe and not safe, as I use MSN for people I know, meaning that my personal details are relatively safe being displayed. The 3d Chat, which I do not actually use, but if I did, it would be using a character, which means you’re not actually allowing people to access your personal information.