I’m a photographer ... what’s a camera?

Okay. So maybe a camera of some design is only a part of the image-making process. So?
Maybe assistants help out. Okay, so?
Sculptures and painters have assistants. So do doctors and lawyers.

We stumble over names too much. What's a photographer? Who really needs to define this?
 
hepcat said:
I'm sorry, but I can't agree. Crewdson is a director. The "assistants" Crewsdon hires to capture the images he directs are photograhers. He's doing the same job as the director on a movie set; the only difference is the recording equipment and medium.
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In the same way that any number of professional photographers who use an army of assistants direct the resulting image. It is like saying that a film director does not make the film and that it is the camera operator. It is irrelevant who trips the shutter if they have no artistic control over the image IMHO.
 
RichC said:
- I have a shelf with a complete set of Weston light meters (they were made in my home town, Enfield!).
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Hi Rich, I got hold of a beautiful Weston Master III the other day. It's mint and in it's leather case. The only thing is I don't have a invercone for it. What is the chance of finding one these days?

It works just fine, once I worked out how to convert ISO/ASA into Westons! I've got it set at 320 Westons for 400ASA. It reads spot on when I compare it to my Lunasix 3 S.

It's a model S 141.3 and amazing quality. Do you know what year it was made?

Sorry about the thread hijack!

To answer your original post...
I don't see how you can be a photographer if you don't take photographs. Pin-hole cameras made from beer cans capturing an image on paper or film would still count as using a camera but using other peoples images goes against the grain.
 
I check in at the RFF every day. When I do the very first thing that appears on the page is the gallery. Without fail, there's always an interesting image that I'm compelled to click on for a closer view. Some amazing talents here - producing wonderful images. It may meander a bit but the images are the ultimate goal.
 
As a parting comment, over time I’ve become less interested in cameras and gear and more concerned with creating images, to the extent that I don’t care what equipment or techniques I use, provided I get the photograph I’ve visualised. Film, digital, Photoshop, rangefinder, SLR - whatever works... I even have a project where I’ve cut out photos from a magazine!
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I'm definitely not a "gear head" but if you don't know what your gear can or can't do, and if you don't know how to use that gear, you will simply not get the image you've visualised. Or if you do, it'll be by accident.

My stuttering, spasmodic periods of photography are, I feel, characterised by not getting the images I visualised when I took the photographs. Occasionally I surprise myself and something turns out just as I wanted it. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised by how something turned out even when it's not what I was aiming at.

Either way, I try to remember what I did with my gear to get that result.

One day, maybe, I'll be so familiar with my cameras and how they work that - like riding a bike - I don't need to think about what I'm doing and can just do it. But I went back to film because not thinking about what I was doing with my digital camera wasn't making me a better photographer.
 
RichC said:
Hi Stewart - long time no [virtual] see...! <waves>
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good day sir ... :nods-and-tips-hat:

however I don't necessarily agree with the premiss ... I've always had a problem with factory art, Warhol, Hirst and the like

I extend that same distrust to photography ... because it is an art, isn't it?
 
RichC said:
I’m a photographer ... what’s a camera?

This forum is full of gearheads - some even seem to place more importance on how the image is taken rather than seeing the image as the entire point of photography. The camera was of course invented to make pictures, not for folk to fondle the equipment used to create photographs. Witness Stephen’s recent thread...

Stephen’s thread was conventional from, in that there was an underlying consensus that whether being a “gearhead” or “image-maker”, a photographer needs to understand their equipment and technique.

On reflection, I disagree. You can be a world-class photographer and know nothing about cameras; indeed, you can be a photographer without using a camera.

Examples of a few such important photographers who have changed the face of modern photography are given below. For all them, it’s all about the image: Schmid is wholly uninterested in the mechanics of photography; Crewdson employs people to sort out the technical details of his photographs and to take them; and Rickard takes snaps of his computer screen.

Is what these “camera-less” practitioners doing still photography - collecting other people’s photographs; getting someone else to set up and take “your” photograph; finding images on Google taken by someone else (albeit they may never have been seen before, as the Google images are recorded automatically)? These photographers may not be household names but are hugely influential in contemporary photography
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I understand your point but aren't you confusing image makers who use others photography with photographers? I'd call them artists?
I would say people who practice photography would have to 'capture light' people who find others snaps in the bins/on screen & daub paint on them are really artists and not photographers as such.

If your goal is the final image in this type of sense you certainly don't need a camera or know how to use it, but I don't see the people you quoted as photographers.
That doesn't mean they can't be influential, or push boundaries by taking others images and re-cycling them, I'm not sure I want to call it 'photography'.
To me they are just artists.
 
Sparrow said:
good day sir ... :nods-and-tips-hat:

however I don't necessarily agree with the premiss ... I've always had a problem with factory art, Warhol, Hirst and the like

I extend that same distrust to photography ... because it is an art, isn't it?
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Can be an art, or not - depends on "why"... passport photos are undeniably photographs, but they're documents not art, which was, and remains, the main reason for taking photographs.

Perhaps beyond the scope of this thread, some argue that talk of any discrete medium - painting, sculpture, photography - is entirely pointless. As Rosalind Krauss says, photography and everything else exists in a post-medium condition - neither fish nor fowl, photograph or painting, text or image... That's postmodernism for you! <grin>
 
RichC said:
Can be an art, or not - depends on "why"... passport photos are undeniably photographs, but they're documents not art, which was, and remains, the main reason for taking photographs.

Perhaps beyond the scope of this thread, some argue that talk of any discrete medium - painting, sculpture, photography - is entirely pointless. As Rosalind Krauss says, photography and everything else exists in a post-medium condition - neither fish nor fowl, photograph or painting, text or image... That's postmodernism for you! <grin>
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In the end it's all a mixture of perception and conception, and personally I need a camera to realise my concepts, others may well not have that restriction but I've always needed that level of control in order to feel I own the image ... it's probably due to my studio upbringing I make a big distinction between mine and ours

What is this postmodernism of which you speak?
 
What is this postmodernism of which you speak?
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Well, we've had painters who don't paint, so it's only a small step we have photographers without cameras now.

And a drone operator, is he still a pilot?

Nescio
 
hepcat said:
Photography is about capturing reflected light using some medium and redisplaying what was captured; nothing more... but that IS the primary element in its purest terms. Folks who use those redisplayed images are consumers of photography, not producers.

That's one of the interesting things of our times. Very clear lines seem to be blurred by people who don't understand them... that doesn't mean the lines themselves are blurred, it's merely that more and more people don't understand where they lie.
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This X10 I agree. People redifine terms to mean what they want and things get blurred BBAR. Blurred beyond all recognition.

By the OP definition it seems people who simply look at and find beauty or meaning in existing photos are now photographers.

In any case. Camera collecting and Photography are related but obviously not the same thing. You can be either without being the other or both at the same time.
 
@RichC

There's nothing wrong in my opinion, with pursuing any kind of activity, as long as it does not hurt other people, damage their property or infringe their rights:

1689
English philosopher John Locke sets forth the notion of natural rights and defines them as the rights to "life, liberty and property."

As far as "ART" goes, since Marcel Duchamp started assembling his bits and pieces, there has been a school of thought, that it doesn't really matter, if what an artist does is interesting or beautiful, but what matters is that it is HIS, the ARTIST'S product. This has evolved pretty quickly to the apex, seized by Piero Manzoni, who has rightly cut to the bone of the matter, and he put his sh*t in cans, named it "ARTIST'S SH*T" and delclared, that he will sell it for the weight of gold.
This has been a smashing success. The reality went beyond his expectations, because at a recent auction, Sotheby's sold one of these cans for about TWICE it's weight in gold. So, this could be a good idea to make money out of art, but there is a caveat. The cans started selling only after Manzoni's death. I believe, the reason was simple: the art dealers were fearing heavy supply of the same product, in case the ARTIST was still alive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist's_****


Here we come therefore to the question of photography in general, and this forum in particular. I am not interested in flaming anybody who is a photographer without a camera, but my personal opinion is, that if your photos suck, then you are either "not close enough", or maybe, you don't even have a camera !

I have nothing to object if somebody pays 2.7 million dollars for an ugly, retouched digital photo of the Rhine, or whatever other uninspiring image, however I hold proudly my opinion, that as photographers, the authors of these photos do not merit to kiss the feet of HCB, Irving Penn or Edward Weston.

I also think RFF is a bit full of gear talk, and to mitigate the issue, I tend to stick many photos in my posts. I invite you to do the same, and show us what is really important to you - perhaps you will make us richer this way.

Best regards.

Marek

From my last roll:


201210024 by mfogiel, on Flickr
 
mfogiel said:
@RichC


Here we come therefore to the question of photography in general, and this forum in particular. I am not interested in flaming anybody who is a photographer without a camera, but my personal opinion is, that if your photos suck, then you are either "not close enough", or maybe, you don't even have a camera !

I have nothing to object if somebody pays 2.7 million dollars for an ugly, retouched digital photo of the Rhine, or whatever other uninspiring image, however I hold proudly my opinion, that as photographers, the authors of these photos do not merit to kiss the feet of HCB, Irving Penn or Edward Weston.

I also think RFF is a bit full of gear talk, and to mitigate the issue, I tend to stick many photos in my posts. I invite you to do the same, and show us what is really important to you - perhaps you will make us richer this way.
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This i agree with, In the OP RichC derides people for whom the final image isn't the be all and end all as 'gear heads' when in reality they may wish to know process and how the pre-visual image is turned into a real image.
That process is important, you shouldn't think of those to whom the final image isn't the be all as gear heads.

It's not that simple, gear counts, vision counts and skill to use those and the knowledge makes those final images really counts.

To then counter with 'exiting' new photographers who use others images from google as an example of 'it's only the image' when he describes the part of their workflow which is key to their differentiation.
Google is their gear...

My name is Mark and I'm a photographer:
144475677.jpg
 
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