Long Exposure #2 : What is a photographer?

By definition a photographer is a person that takes photographs.
Does that mean that all the person that take photographs are photographers?

Being a photographer is more than the mechanical action of pushing a button.
Being a photographer is more than sharing your craft.

To be a photographer, you need to think, see, capture and deliver.

To think is to look for what your subject will be. Will it be something personal or something mundane? An object or a person? Is it part of a bigger project? Is it a one-shot? What is the story you want to convey?

To see is to imagine your subject in your ideal picture, your perfect shot. If my subject is a striker, my ideal shot would be to see the ball leaving his foot for the winning goal, with the expression of the beaten goalkeeper caught.

To capture is to bring life to your ideal shot, put in the box what you dreamt of, to get as close as possible from your ideal shot. A photographer will often look at his picture and tell you how it could have been better; this is the difference between what he saw and what he caught.

To deliver is to release your catch in the wild, after you tamed it and made it yours. Once your delivered your final result you shouldn’t have to retouch or edit it anymore. It should be the vision you thought of, as close as possible to what you wanted it to be.

If you’re lucky, your delivery will touch a lot of people and be well received, but it’s not the number of people that sees your shots that make you a photographer. You are the photographer and taking pictures is just one facet of who you are.

When you leave and breathe photography, you’re a photographer.
I’m lucky enough to see what a photographer looks like with Celine, and I only wish it will make me better over time.

Here’s a presentation at the Photoshop World keynote of 2013 about being a photographer (start around 15:22 until about 26:00)