Re-Post: Am I a Photographer?
Am I someone who can capture light in an instance that is organized in a way that can be appreciated and admired?
At what point does someone become a photographer? Is it when they shoot their first image on a friends camera? Is it when they buy their first camera? Is it when they get paid for the first time to shoot their neighbors kid?
To be perfectly honest, sometimes I am frustrated by other people calling themselves a photographer when, in my mind, they don’t know enough to give themselves such a title. But then I wonder if I am that person to someone else?
These are a lot of questions with no answers, because there is no absolute threshold to a person becoming such. There is no graduation ceremony although some people have studied the art and technical sides of the medium. There is no marriage, no orientation, no test, and there is no oath of office in becoming a photographer. You are if you say you are.
So why then is there a frustration when an auto-everything shooter comes along and tells me they are a photographer?
I see people on an almost daily basis with extra time on their hands, and the resources at their disposal to make a nice photograph. But these people aren’t challenged. They are put in front of an attractive subject or model, given proper or interesting lighting by someone else who knows what they are doing, and asked to press the button of a machine that does everything automatically and gives instant results on their display. Then the bragging ensues about look how great a photograph they took. Egos become apparent when no real feat has occurred. No challenge has been overcome. My own ego included for feeling the way I do.
I am not saying that there is some special trick that others and I know that some don’t. There are no smoke and mirrors like some would lead you to believe, just people who have learned how to control the light they capture.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am very supportive of other people wanting to pursue a passion and desire to become a photographer and I and am willing to help them with whatever I can. The problem, I’ve decided, is when those people are not challenged, stop learning, or even worse, do not desire to be challenged or learn. The brings the mean of all photographers down another level with every person that calls themselves a professional and becomes satisfied with simply pressing a button.
So if you are a photographer out there, on any level or definition of the word, please do not stop learning, and do not stop trying. I don’t know it all or have it all figured out, but I just ask you to challenge yourself and others around you. We will all be better off for it.
Being a photographer used to be a skill that was admired and respected, but we have over-saturated peoples minds by calling ourselves photographers. That has created an “I can get anyone to do it” mentality, that allows the ones that are truly talented (far more talented than I) to get lost in the crowd as just another photographer.
All of this said, though, I believe this mentality in others has forcibly challenged me to become better and not get comfortable in purely understanding how to capture light, but allowed me to begin to tap the emotions what we do can invoke in peoples lives. And I can be thankful for that
I think photography has been oversaturated with Photoshoppers. A faint selection of unedited files make it to the production line, so to speak. Everything is place on the chopping block with .atn files as the butchers’ knife. What does this mean? I think it means, there are lots of people with good cameras and Adobe that can make a decent picture based on framing/composition, etc. BUT …. I love to see a photographer that can produce photographs like the ones presented here, if in fact they are straight off the memory card.
–my two cents–