who is a photographer?

Since I'm a photo student, I spend a ton of time contemplating what the deal with photography is. It's a weird major and a weird thing out in the open world. Tons of people with no ability buy great equipment and make pretty pictures and call themselves photographers. It's weird, photography has this strange dynamic going on. And I was thinking about the rules I have seen established in photography. Not in terms of good/bad photos, just in terms of photographers, of skills, of who excels and who doesn't. But yes. These are the rules as I've seen them and as

1. Any idiot can take a sharp, well exposed photo with good color. It takes virtually no training, no skill and no real eye to do this, especially in our age of automatic settings and digital cameras. Set a camera on auto and you tend to get pretty photos. It's not really rocket science.

2. Photography, unlike other fine arts mediums, does not tend to weed out the less talented as easily. Because any idiot can take a fancy camera and make a pretty photo, there are a ton of folks out there who think that because this one time they took a nice photo of a flower, that they are photographers. And unlike other fine arts mediums, lack of technical ability can be faked (to some extent). But ultimately lack of knowledge of composition and of the full range of the tools does show. Eventually.

3. It isn't hard to take pretty photos of pretty things. This is why most untrained/amature photographers shoot things like flowers, animals, small children, so forth. Not to say that it is simple to get good photos of these subjects, certainly there are skilled artists who have created intense and important bodies of work around these topics (I'm thinking of you Sally Mann). I'm just saying in a broad way that it is much harder to make pretty photos of garbage

4. Photoshop effects and filters do not fine art make. But some knowledge of how this tool works and you've got a billion folks with cameras off and running with their ART.


You know, it's not that I'm opposed to folks playing with photography. I just have this thing. You see, I'm a photographer. I work hard, I study and shoot and attend critque classes where I get shot down just as often as I get praised, sometimes more. I have picked a career path that is incredibly hard to make it in. There are tons of other photographers, legitimate artists who work every bit as hard as I do. I'm not alone, this is a fact I can state after befriending my peers in the photo department. As a photographer, as a student, as an artist dedicated to her craft, I can understand the lure of photography. It's seductive, the chemicals and the darkrooms and the clickhisswrrsnap of the shutters and pops of the lights. I get it, I really do. I too have learned to love the smell of fixer, even when it gives me headaches, I too waste hours setting up lights and composing images, only for it all to come together for only a few photos. I get it.

But the thing that bothers me is this: Because photography is such an accessible art form, there are a ton of people who come in without training, without a real eye for it, without the passion and need to do this. And they suck up jobs, space, and they talk about the art form without any understanding whatsoever. It's frustrating to see someone sweep in with some equipment but without comprehension and talk it up like they've done the work.

Perhaps this is elitist of me, perhaps this is exclusionary. But I am protective of my medium. By all means, come on in and play about but playing and using expensive equipment on auto is not the same as thoughtfully composing work. A number of my friends shoot with cheap cameras, one of my good friends and classmates shoots with a plastic camera riddled with light leaks. But she works at her art and she composes lovely work. It takes skill, it takes a thoughtful eye and it becomes art, even with a cheap plastic camera. You don't need a degree or even fancy college classes but an interest in self education and the ability to recognize and comprehend what makes work good and what makes it less good is something. And the ability to take critique and honestly edit your own work, facing your own shortsighted eye and finding out how you see, this is essential, this is the heart of photography.