Am I a Photographer?

It’s a lot easier to become a lawyer or a electrician than it is to become a photographer. Lawyers get a degree and take a test. Electricians serve as an apprentice, then pass a test. What do photographers do? There are no rules.

It takes a license to be a doctor or even a barber. We just buy a camera.

There is a clear dividing line between being a plumber or not. If I try to fix the bathroom faucet, I may get out my wrench, but my wife does not call me a plumber. For good reason. But a friend with a Nikon D80 and a 300mm lens this week reminded me that she is often assumed to be a “professional photographer” because she has a “professional looking” (I presume that means big) camera.

The evidence of the problem can be plainly seen. As we troll the pages of Model Mayhem or Flickr we see many examples of so-called glamour photos that should never have been taken. They are often of models who should never be in front of a camera in poses that should never be shot. These, usually nude, photos are then posted on MM, OMP, Flickr or somesuch and showered with praise, usually by males whose own portfolio contains a lot of similar images.

But back to my point: When should we call ourselves a photographer? When have we crossed that line from just owning a camera?

It may be a gray area, but I think we cross that point when we transition from taking a snapshot principally to record a memory or an experience to creating an image for the sake of the image itself. Sure the quality of some photographers’ pictures will be a lot better than others. I don’t think I take bad photos … but I am humbled by the portraits of Yousuf Karsh, the glamour of Arny Freytag, and almost anyone whose photos appear in National Geographic!

That said, I’m still aghast at the number of people, usually male, whose portfolio resembles a trophy case of girls they “got nekkid.” I know there are some people who just want to get girls out of their clothes and others who genuinely think their shots are worthwhile. For me, I cringe when I look at some of my shots from the past and am grateful that there is not a photographers’ version of the try-out episodes of American Idol. (Isn’t there a any family member with the courage to tell some of these guys they can’t sing????)

All this has inspired me to remove nude shots from my MM and OMP pages. It has also inspired me to continue to do better work to capture the beauty (and sometimes humor) that is out there.