When you are young, the world is so different. Everything seems so simple and so one dimensional, but of course, as we grow up we find this to be the furtherest from the truth. Things can get so multi-dimensional that many of us would start to contemplate string theory existing in the multi-faceted realm of the universe in which we live.
It is no different with photography. As a youngster; it is just a simple magical box that could take a fantastic magical picture with a simple press of a button. As we grew, we found it might be a bit more complicated than this. By the time we are teenagers, we realize it takes skill and talent to really capture the world. It is also a sort of a let down that you cannot just take a good picture without effort, an immature desire, to have everything be easy is natural.
Years later, you’ve chosen to pick up a camera in true pursuit of the moniker “photographer”. But, we live in a digital age of photography. Cameras are heavily available and it is almost “too easy” to take an adequate photograph with almost any digital camera available on the market. Just have it set on “Auto” or “Program.”
As a person who photographs things often and with care given to various camera settings, you begin to see the difference in the “photographers” around you. Along with the prevalence of digital cameras in our age comes the advent of easy sharing of our photographic outputs. Someone in Japan and England can share their photos with someone in America in the snap of a finger.
Soon, you realize that there are “photographers” on the internet that are nothing more than people who just recently got a point & shoot camera. Most people who attempt to make photography a career dismiss these people as just starting out. After all, they have their SLR digital camera bodies, lighting and they photograph their local whatever. So they MUST be photographers, right? With the wave of the trendy Photoshop actions and over-editing; we all seem hell bent on trying to separate ourselves from those with P&S(point and shoot) cameras.
But, I think this is another level of awakening, just like a child thinks what he thinks, many “photographers” nowadays try to rush into something and being what they are not. Does heavy editing make a good photo? Does harsh lighting? Do gimmicks?
Infact, it seems that the Photographic industry is FULL of the “prima donna” types. Pushing a seminar here or some kind of “Uber One of a Kind Photoshop Action” and they make more money from that then they do with photography!
Perhaps today is just a bit of an awakening for me; but I find that too many “photographers” are NOT “photographers”! I sit here looking over at my several SLR bodies questioning weather or not I have really earned the moniker of “photographer”. It feels like I and photographers as a whole are heading down a road of declaring themselves master without going through the correct steps of becoming a master of a craft. Money is not an indication, it is skill, it is attitude and it is BEING the attitude. Capturing the real. Not using photoshop to make it real.
Again, every single photographically related website on the internet is brimming with “photographers” and you really have to ask yourself.
What makes a “photographer” a true real life and golden “photographer”?
