Sometimes I am asked ‘Why am I a photographer?’ Often there are days when I ask myself the same question but with a heavy emphasis on the ‘am’.
I hear so often in these digital times that ‘anyone can be a photographer’ as if the mere purchase of a piece of equipment can make you something. If that is the case I am off to buy a stethoscope. I just wish I could afford the Playboy Mansion or a F1 team.
Of course, life doesn’t work that way. A photographer, by my definition, makes pictures using imagination, emotion, skill and knowledge. A camera of some sort is required but it isn’t the reason a photographer photographs.
A photographer sees a picture before raising the camera to the eye - yet is often surprised by what can happen as light bounces around in the viewfinder. Not to mention the shenanigans that silver halides and pixels can get up to! The origin of a photograph is most often a thought that becomes frozen by
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s ‘decisive moment’. It is the result of both a temporal and spiritual interaction with light as it hits (and sometimes misses) the scene on the other side of the lens.
Photographers see pictures even when they don’t have a camera. The guilt felt when this happened the first time is why photographers always carry a camera. A photographer doesn’t need an audience. Sure, an ego needs the occasional feed but they will make pictures even if the success of exhibitions, publication and social media likes eludes them.
So, if not just anyone can be a photographer, what about being a Professional Photographer? I have come to recognise that a Professional Photographer is not always a ‘photographer’ as I have just described above.
I even think it
is possible for anyone to be a Professional Photographer. They may never be exceptionally - or any - good at it but, given the right equipment, assistance and adequate seed money, a person may be able to make enough satisfactory pictures for a certain type of client to buy their services. Eventually they may improve and get repeat customers. Most likely they’ll go broke. In any case, for a period of time, the occupation box on their tax returns will say ’Professional Photographer’.
There does sometimes occur the happy coincidence where photographers are paid for making the pictures they are passionate about. It’s how I turned pro around 27 years ago. Unfortunately, for most of us those clients who want you to photograph exactly what you want to photograph (and pay you for it) don’t last forever. Or even for long.
In moments of reflection, I consider the role of the Enthusiast Photographer in today’s photography scene. I love trawling
Flickr, Google+, 500px and other sites. I find so many wonderful, intriguing and sometimes gobsmacking images made by people who may well be considered the true photographers of the 21st century.
Many make pictures purely because of their love of photography. The accessibility of digital photography allows them to reach skill levels and undertake experimentation that would not have been possible in the analogue times. Photography gives them a creative break from the demands of day to day life and while camera gear can be expensive there are still many affordable entry points to the world of photography. Like the photographer who cobbled together rudimentary cameras and lenses to
photograph individual snowflakes on his exposed and cold patio.
I have made pictures since I was 16 and still work hard serving corporate, government and small business clients. Yet, after more than 25 years as a full time professional I still love 'finding pictures' for myself and making them into prints. I may work in a dry lightroom today and not the wet darkroom where the art of photography first took hold in my imagination but the passion is still there.
My personal images are not confined by genre. I make pictures to express how light and shadow shape my creativity. I look for the special light wherever it hits (and misses) the scenes I come across. Made around my neighbourhood, my country and the world, they include coastal landscapes, urban architecture, rural locations as well as portraits and the human figure.
While the back story to my pictures is important to their creation, my motivation is to make prints that are independent of their origins. I want eyes to wander around the composition, enjoying the tones, colours and finding nearly hidden details. The viewer may have never visited where I made the picture but if it encourages reflection, perhaps a daydream, I am very happy.
I am committed to the search for light and the process of photography. For the most part, though, the best of my endeavours in this time of digital photography are usually just pixels on a screen. I still exist on the idea that a picture isn't real until I can feel it. The light and shadow of my imagination and creativity lives in the paper you hold when I show you a print. No longer ones and zeros moving around the ether, those pixels are now real.
For many years I was able to separate my photography from my job - even though my job was being a Professional Photographer. I enjoyed making pictures for clients (I still do!) and supplying a service for a fee gave me the time and the money to make pictures for myself.
But that was the 80’s and 90’s when my day fee could go as high as $4k and I was paid $75 for each roll of film I put through my ‘Blad. Not to mention the $8 per Polaroid. Unfortunately, the fees I now charge are much lower despite me having many more photographic skills than in 2002 when I bought my first DSLR.
So, while the mantra ‘anyone can be a photographer’ is popular, it is very far from reality. I know there are many like me working hard at our day jobs as Professional Photographers so we can continue to relish and love our other lives as photographers.
