Being a photographer is not about taking pictures.

Being a photographer is not about taking pictures.

I was thinking about photography as I walked home this evening after a lovely meal out with my daughter. Today was my first day of not being a business analyst, so if I’m no longer that what do I say I if anyone should ask?  Should I describe myself in terms of what I was yesterday or in terms of the photographer I want to be tomorrow? Then it crossed my mind that perhaps being a photographer is not even about taking pictures; photography is, but what about being a photographer?

I saw a photography exhibition in Glasgow today. Many of the photographs featured everyday people in their everyday setting. Nothing unusual about that until you realise the photographs were by a man named John Thomson and were taken in China between 1868 and 1872.  I’ve taken a couple of photographs today using a phone camera and posted them online within minutes. John Thomson used large glass plates to record each picture and had to take portable developing equipment with him. His equipment and collections of images were so heavy they needed several people to carry them.

So was John Thomson a photographer?  Are any of the millions of others who posted photographs online today using their phones photographers? My guess is that if you could ask them most people would say they aren’t photographers. They don’t have a fancy camera, they don’t take good pictures, they would describe themselves as teachers and plumbers and waiters and students and any number of other labels - but not as photographers. They do photography but they aren’t photographers.  A proper photographer is someone who does it for a living, so at best they would call themselves amateur photographers. Given that the word amateur derives from the Latin for love I’d say that John Thomson was definitely a lover of photography – a dedicated amateur in the true sense of the word who made remarkable pictures.

Does that mean someone who takes a photograph and is paid for it is a photographer? What about someone who took a snap at some significant event and sold it to a newspaper?  At what point do you cease to be a plumber and become a professional snapper? Is it after one sold photo, or five, or twenty-five?  I once heard a professional photographer speak about how he used to be a plumber, albeit on the large scale rather than domestic pipework. He was given a camera as a gift, started to take sports photographs because that was what he was interested in, eventually sold some to the local newspaper, and had his big break when he took some iconic images of a tragic disaster.  He eventually decided to give up plumbing and do paid photography full time. It strikes me that it wasn’t getting the camera that made him a professional, or getting good sports pictures, or selling them, or even taking images that would be instantly recognisable throughout the world. My guess is he became a professional photographer when he decided to be one.

Which brings me back to my musings as I walked home this evening. Being a photographer is not so much about taking pictures as deciding. It doesn’t happen when someone gives you a certificate to say you’ve mastered f-stops and apertures.  It doesn’t happen because you’d like to be one, or even hope to be one someday, it doesn’t happen because you can take a pretty good picture. You become a professional photographer when you decide to be one.