Exercise: Analyse an essay

Our task was to read John Berger's 1972 essay 'Understanding a Photograph'.

On my first read I made a spider diagram to jot down points that stuck out for me. My notebook page is below.

Spidergram - insert from my learning log notebook, 2015

After re-reading the essay, I believe that John Berger's argument summarised into one line is that photography does not deserve to be considered a fine art because it is merely a representation of a moment seen by the photographer that he/she considered it worthy of recording.
He has presented his argument very clearly and has good reasoning behind his points. He does not appear to be able to be swayed on the matter, there is a very strict and conservative tone to his argument which would tie in with his socio-political stance.
I am not convinced by Berger's argument. The essay itself appears in John Berger's Selected Essays and Articles: The look of Things (penguin (pelican) books, 1972). Given that we are now in the 21st Century, I feel that photography is even more recognised as an art form nowadays. Bergers argument focuses on value and rarity in the first instance but nowadays it is more common to see photography exhibitions within museums  and well known photographers can produce rare, well known and valuable pieces. Berger believes that photographs are merely snapshots of memorable events or places and while this is true to some extent, (I have seen so many people thinking they can be labelled as a photographer because they can use Instagram), a photographer can capture a shot that not only he/she wants to see but one that can also be enjoyed by many other people.
Photography has always been something that can be mass produced, you can see why Bergers argument questions the rarity, however this mass production can then stretch to market that image worldwide therefore exposing not only the image, but the photographer and could potentially increase the photographs value.
As I expected, this writing style is particularly academic and difficult to read in my eyes. His argument is clear, however, it is difficult to not get sidetracked by the language if you do not fully understand it.