What is it to be a photograph?

I've been thinking recently of the status of art in our culture and also of the status of photography within art.... I mention this here because I would like to have a discussion about it-- which might also be fun to continue at the Greater Woodbury Arts Council meeting next Saturday, the 12, at the Woodbury Mews....... Speaking of the Mews, I've thought more on that subject and identified a curious coincidence between the status of the artist and the status of the elderly in our culture..... The artist and the geriatric have both been largely pushed aside by popular hegemony.... Our turbulent culture of constant turnover by the machine of capitalism forces its members to adapt constantly to new objects and surroundings... As one grows older, it becomes increasingly difficult to adapt (I've read some time ago about a supposed law of technological advancement in which each year doubles our total technology of the previous one-- I cannot put it more accurately because I'm not sure I understand how such a measure is made or if the claim is even sensical), and so it happens that the elderly are left behind, quite literally indeed.... No longer producing and consuming at a rate that is acceptable to the hegemony, they are shaken off from the system and vaulted in these apartment buildings which resemble hotels... The most outstanding characteristic of the elderly, their wisdom gained through the amount and variety of experience gained by many years, is useless in this culture and it is largely forgotten... For the artist, it is not very different.... The artist does little adaptation, as it is against his innermost desire, which is to express something that is somehow pure (whether that be by the style of painting or bringing attention to the grotesque character of something-- somewhere in all that he does, the artist attempts to express some truth, even if he has to lie to himself or the audience in order to do so)........ The meager and humble living of an artist is well-documented, as she too is no longer producing objects of utility or consuming them adequately...... Focusing on this relation between the elder and the artist, I feel that it is kind of rebellious and apropos that the GWAC meets in the basement of the Mews.. Let's share our art with the elderly--- perhaps there is no one more worthwhile with whom we should be sharing our art (who else-- rich, snobby cogs freshly oiled from their week of feeding the engines of dehumanizing capitalism?)
Whence does art come?... Where is it going?...... Can the commodification of images and beauty and art be a savior or a devil for our culture?
The photograph is a mechanically processed image meant to evoke various emotions and display various ideas or histories... what more can it be than that?