And, going back to poetry--consider Billy Collins (former Poet Laureate of the US). His poems are often funny. But I know people, sorry Billy, who consider his work "light" and essentially not really "poetry" (whatever that is). Does the humor somehow detract from his status as a "true" artist?

I hear my old mother muttering, "Define your terms."

Maybe humorous photography is only "Art" when it has a satirical, or "deeper" meaning? Of course, I have a knack for reading something into everything, so I could try to defend my funnies as going a bit deeper than slapstick. (Though, thinking about it, slapstick can be pretty profound.)

So--let's look at this one. Immediately amusing--at least to me and a few others--what else does the image deliver? The title says part of it: "Tied Up". The free-ranging connotations here attach to various parts of the image: there is the juxtaposition of those sharp little teeth close to those pitifully unprotected ankles. There is the excessiveness of the leash, wrapped more than once. And there are all sorts of implications about how we are entangled & impeded by the small and dear. The small and dear, here, is imprisoned too, but looking pretty triumphant anyway.

What I'm getting at is: would one hang something like this on a wall? And how? Might it sit in a little frame on the desk of the woman who is tied up? Might it make a cutesy poster? How outrageous would it be to develop it large, in the darkroom, as a platinum/palladium print?