If a key factor in distinguishing a good photograph from a bad one – or at least an interesting one from one that is not – is whether the photograph tells us something new about the visual world and how we understand it, or at least something that we thought we knew before in a better or novel way, then is aesthetics (or any other similar measure for judging photographic art (and by extension, any other art form to the extent that the same test applies)) nothing more than a type of epistemology?  Stated differently, is visual art essentially an epistemological process?