Vintage v. Contemporary?

This "vintage v. contemporary" thing is a little strange.

On the one hand, I'm certainly grateful to Christian Patterson for his kind words. (Around here, "opinionated" is a kind word.)

On the other, I can't agree that there is any legitimate distinction between "vintage" and contemporary photography. Art exists on a continuum thousands of years long. Even the small part occupied by photography extends back a century and a half. In terms of its relevance to the present, each photograph on that continuum might just as well have been taken today. And every one of those photographs is available for comparison to any other one.

There are lots of good photographs being made today. And many that are not. Same as it always was. At every point in time, there is good work and bad. Everyone who looks at pictures has an obligation - to the pictures, if nothing else - to make that distinction. To look critically. That's how, over time, the bad work gets discarded.