Are YOU a photographer?

[Shab]

It's a good "point".

I think myself as a photographer. Some years ago I decided to keep honest with me, it means to capture/make pictures that I felt I need to, in the way I felt...

I think that time I began a journay (my everyday life) and my camera was/is my "pencil" for my "poems"... it's going on every day. Sometimes I see there is people who is touched by a photograph I made... it's a very special moment.

Here you have a photograph I made the last saturday:

 

[davidswiss]

I wish I was. I do try and occasionally one pops out that's ok, but most are just snaps. It's interesting for me that one grand daughter that has a good eye and, using
digital, can make really interesting pictures, but I've always been an enthusiastic snapper.

 

[splitimageview]

No, but here are some of my old friends that are!

 

[Michalm]

Not strictly photographer , rather keeping diary of intimate authentic memories , also camera gives me excuse to go out there , look for the scenes that will dazzle me. Certainly I 'm more of a photographer than an essaist.

 

[d.keljikian]

Do you tell a story? Is there emotional content in your work? Are you building a body of work that pleases you but represents no explicit commercial value? Do you continue the process of photography for both known and unknown reasons that are personally/ commercially compelling? Are you a decorator looking for a perfect palette for that client's living room? Do you sell your work?
All of these things answer the question: Yes.

Is your work worth it to others?
If you are a photographer, it's none of your business. Work for yourself (unless you have to) and decide.
Doug

 

[neal3k]

I might not have been a photographer with anyone else's definition, but not long after I got my Sears (cheap) rangefinder, a Tower 57-A I shot this scene. It is one of the only early 35mm photos I have been able to find but it made me feel like the real thing. I was 17.

My first "Artistic" photo 1962 by Neal Wellons, on Flickr

 

[Richard G]

I didn’t really know what I wanted or what I was looking for in photography when I was 12. I was bursting with desire but no structure to it. Two things took me from a chronicler of the family, with some nice shots, or endless records of the environment but no synthesis. First eas taking the old Zeiss Ikon on a school camp when I was 13 and this sort of photography of familiar people doing activities bloomed in my late 20s capturing my junior colleagues at our annual balls and dinners which I’m still doing. I learnt something of capturing character and realized the chemistry of interaction with the subject, especially people I knew less well. In my first trip to Europe a lot of recording, but not all mere records. I was 23. The second trip in 1986 I was almost 26 and I finally got a better grasp of architecture and planes and shapes and light in Florence and began for the first time deliberately making pictures not capturing or just recording. With my new M4-2 and 50 bought by the Arno I had one magical day with several shots on FP4. This one is a lousy scan but I placed the dirty plinth pedestal deliberately, enjoying also the diagonal’s disruption of the formality of the Palazzo Pitti behind. Playing with shapes stayed with me since that day.

 

[MISH]

The bigger your camera, the more they think you know what you're doing.

I was photographing a castle in Southern Germany back in the 1990s with a Hasselblad on a tripod, and a German family of tourists shooed away their kiddos because they didn't want them interfering with der Professional.

Similarly, I had a bunch of tourists get off a bus on the top rim of BryceCanyon National Park while I was shooting with a Wisner field camera. Again, these were German folks who were fascinated to look at the ground glass and examine the camera.

Maybe it's just Germans, but I don't think so.

I was photographing Old Faithful with my Wisner and soon had a crowd of people around me taking photos of me and my “old” camera

 

[Dogman]

I was photographing Old Faithful with my Wisner and soon had a crowd of people around me taking photos of me and my “old” camera

We were at Old Faithful once with our first Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier. They were not that common breed at the time. I was taking pictures and noticed several people were taking pictures of our dog instead of Old Faithful.

That little story had nothing to do with the original question, right. Okay, when did I discover I was a photographer? It wasn't a single photograph that did it. It was a series of photos and events and comments. I'm prone to get really involved in something only to burn out fairly quickly. I discovered the burning out wasn't happening when it came to photography. I had totally immersed myself in the hobby and never really came up for air. Still there after over fifty years, swimming around.



......................................

 

[Harry the K]

A photographer is someone whose main and sometimes only interest is to get the picture. According to this definition I´m not a photographer most of the time.
This morning I was. Getting up at 6 and witness the sun rise to give wonderful early morning light. After a hike of two hours I saw the still frosty path. Certainly not the most compelling picture, but a beautiful memory.

 

[Ray Kilby]

I don’t earn income from photography anymore, so I no longer call myself a photographer. I take photographs. To me, the title defines the profession, not the quality or skill of the person behind the camera. I’ve met plenty of terrible “photographers,” and also incredible people who take photos for the love of it and whose work is far superior.

At the end of the day, use the label that feels right to you, the one that truly defines you.

 

[bensyverson]

Just an observation (or maybe a rant), but I think in the US we're overly concerned with how people earn money. "What do you do for work" is often the first or second question when you meet someone new.

I think because of that, when someone from the US hears "I'm a photographer" or "I'm a baker," they mentally insert "professional" before the noun.

This leads us to create qualifiers that downplay our hobbies, avocations and passions. Suddenly you're not a photographer, you're an "amateur photographer," or a "home baker," or a "Sunday painter."

And yet, when someone really is a professional, they will often include that adjective as well, to distance themselves from people who don't monetize their passion. You'll hear "professional photographer," or even "full-time professional photographer" to create some daylight between full-time pros and pro photographers with day jobs.

It's all absurd. I'm a photographer, full stop.

As for when I first self-applied that label, it was probably after my first photography course in college, after years of shooting stills, when I realized that I actually enjoy still photography separately from video/filmmaking.

 

[Ray Kilby]

Then you are a photographer