> Nobody bickers about the definition of "photograph".
Uh, yeah, because there's nothing to bicker about in the definition of a photograph itself. But people absolutely do not view photographers the same way they view illustrators. Nobody would ever, in a million years, consider you an artist because you snapped a selfie. You also don't "make" a photograph, you "take" a photograph (and this kind of distinction exists in every language I speak). You really couldn't have introduced a better example to defeat your own point.
Photographs presented as works of art have something about the choice of what and how to photograph that is artistic. I can't just, like, take a photo of my leg and call it art. At least not without writing a thought-provoking blurb about is a photo of a leg really art? Then it becomes artistic parody, like the toilet sculpture.
Uh, yeah, because there's nothing to bicker about in the definition of a photograph itself. But people absolutely do not view photographers the same way they view illustrators. Nobody would ever, in a million years, consider you an artist because you snapped a selfie. You also don't "make" a photograph, you "take" a photograph (and this kind of distinction exists in every language I speak). You really couldn't have introduced a better example to defeat your own point.