I made mention in one of my posts stating guy with camera and I thought I would make it very clear who I am calling that versus a photographer. A guy (or better put person) with camera is simply that a guy with a camera. That person comes to an event with a camera with the intention to take photographs. This person is generally untrained and understands little more that depressing the shutter button. The knowledge that they have is generally topped of with an understanding of the basic auto settings. Green Box = Good Photo Face = Good for taking images of a face Mountain = Good for taking photos of mountains/big stuff Running Man = Good for sports (or someone being chased by the police Flower = Good for taking photos of flowers or maybe bugs on flowers The have no understanding of light other than the image is to dark or to bright. They have no understanding of how or what shutter speed is. The have no idea of what ISO is. And have no idea what an aperture is. And with that they have no idea how that all three directly tie into creating a well exposed image. Hey look I was a guy with camera for a long time, I even though I was a great photographer because I was being published in magazines using a camera that was little more than a point and shoot camera. The truth is at that time I was doing it for photo credit for free. At the time I had no idea how I was making it possible for the publication to cut the cost of a photographer completely out of the budget. But hey I got my photo credit right? Now after ten years of taking/making (big difference people dont be fooled) millions of images I have made a turn from being that guy with a camera to an actual photographer. Hell none of my cameras actually have those auto settings on them. Did I learn while being out there taking photos? Sure I did but it only got me so far. I sent many hours reading books and web sites to learn just to understand how to ask the questions when I actually took a class or while rubbing elbows with my peers/pros. I learned how to photograph under the worst conditions and how the smallest changes can make the hugest difference. At that point years later I became a photographer. The truth is it does not take years to become a photographer under certain conditions. It does not take the best gear (gear does make a difference. I dont care what you read or who says anything different so please dont try and prove me wrong). Motivation is a huge factor in this. So why the rant? More and more I am finding people expect something for nothing. The main reason for this is because there are 20 guys with a camera at every event. Some of them are really there just to take a few images for themselves or maybe to share amongst friends and family here on Facebook. Some of those people may even take an amazing photo (it happens, but the truth is they dont know what happened or how to repeat it). The next thing you know it they are calling themselves photographers and they line up with the other 20 guys with cameras. They dont care if the requirement to photograph means that they give away all rights and ownership to the photographs, they just want to be there(heck I understand it from a certain point of view). Here is where the train goes off the tracks, at some point the team expects everyone to give up these rights. Hell they even make it a contract forcing the photographers to sign them before they can shoot. Then of of those images ends up in an international ad with not so much as a mention of your name. Now you are a professional photographer looking for that big payday (you can now start thinking about getting that big lens like you see on the sidelines at the Superbowl!) oh shit you signed a contract making them owners of the images! Or better yet the new owners sell your images to a stock photo store like Getty Images and start funding trips off of your work...it can happen people dont be fools! Better yet the guy who spent years learning and purchasing tens of thousands of gear to become an actual photographer is the asshole who will shoot everyone but that team because he understands what signing a piece of paper can take away. By the way I am not against photographing for free. I am against people making money off of my work while I am not being compensated. Are there holes in my thoughts? I am sure there are many. You are not a photographer just because you add photo or photography to your name. A cool watermark does not make a photographer. And just because you can drag the Clarity slider in Lightroom all the way to the right to make an artistic image does not make you a great photographer. If you want to learn how to be a photographer learn from one. Most of us love to teach almost as much as actually photographing.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 21:19:42 +0000
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