Response to Nick

I am commenting on Nicks questions, “Where is my aesthetic experience? In each individual taking of a photograph? In the leaving and returning of a photo-excursion? In the printing and pasting of the photos themselves?”
Because this was posted at the time we were discussing Dewey, I will respond in the context of Dewey.
I would say that the aesthetic experience is in each individual taking of the photograph. This is the time when you are exercising your conscious intention and adding “regulation, power of selection, and redisposition” (Wartenberg 142). It is at the moment you are taking the pictures that you are experiencing so completely that your experience can be an experience, which is what makes your pictures art.
The leaving and returning of the photo-excursion certainly is not the point of your aesthetic experience—you may be conscious, but you are not intervening with your consciousness.
Although I hold that the actual taking of the picture is the moment of aesthetic experience, some difficulty arises with the printing and pasting of the photos themselves. Printing a photo still requires artisanship, and without the conscious intent required by Dewey it most certainly would not end as art. Perhaps photography requires two separate aesthetic experiences—the first where you are intervening in nature (taking the photo), and the second when you are intervening with the photograph (printing).
QUESTION: As discussed at the beginning of the semester, there are many works of art which were created without the intent of the artist (ex. John Lennon’s doodles). Do these prove Dewey’s theory wrong? And if not, then how can they be included under his theory?