What makes a photographer when everyone is taking pictures?

[invisibleflash]

Photographers take photographs, the rest take snap shots. Remember that many crappy snap shots provided Kodak the R&D funds to make superior film products.

Sure, without the camera fondlers the companies would go out of biz.

[aluncrockford]

I heard, back in Peak film, that pros used way more film than amateurs.

I always thought that sounded odd, but perhaps not.

Anybody know the facts?

We were always told that the amateur market subsidised the pros, yes we may well have used shed loads of largeformat 10x8 but the profit was to be had in 35mm, though interestlngly enough both Kodak and fuji sponsored the UK AFEAP heavily for years as the association of being a pro film manufacturer help give them credability in the amateur market

[Two23]

What I've come to think is that digital has removed the cost and dramatically sped up the process. The result has been a flood of perfectly sharp & exposed images, but they are poorly conceived and executed. People don't seem to be taking the time to think through a composition. On some of the gear oriented message boards the foundation of thinking seems to be, "If I get a really good camera, it will do everything for me." The result seems to be little effort put into composition. It's especially bad on the railfan forums I often haunt. I often say that any photo is about great use of Light, and really the train is at best secondary. I go on to say that a great photo less about what you SEE and more about what you FEEL. I mostly get either puzzled looks or replies that I'm a bit "nuts." Sometimes I get responses that are down right hostile.

One thing I've really learned from using vintage cameras, and especially shooting 4x5, is that the camera is the LEAST important thing to how interesting a photo is. I own a Nikon D800E with the very best lenses you can put on it, but some of my favorite and most compelling photos have been made with my 1904 Kodak Brownie No.2. It comes down to this for me: a "picture taker" takes photos, a photographer "makes" them.


Kent in SD

[barnacle]

The classic response to 'Nice photo, you must have a really good camera' is 'Nice dinner, you must have a really good oven'.

I've discovered over the years that the keepability of the image is inversely proportional to the cost/difficulty of the medium. When I use large format, most of what I take - down to the care and thought necessary to make the image in the first place - is if not earth shattering, at least worth keeping. As I move through medium format to 35mm I might get one or two on a roll; when I'm just bangin' away on an electric camera, meh, one in fifty or a hundred. I don't even bother with mobile phones; the device is such a ridiculous format to compose and shoot the image it's not worth bothering.

I should learn more discipline...

('Daddy, what's a camera?' 'Well, son, it's like a mobile phone that can't make calls.')

Neil

[Sirius Glass]

The classic response to 'Nice photo, you must have a really good camera' is 'Nice dinner, you must have a really good oven'.

Those are nice digital pix you took, you must have a good computer.

[cowanw]

I thought of this thread when I read this.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...-photographers

I was amused particularly about the pro photographers complaining that the new guy hadn't put his time in.

"Burberry would have the entire setup ready so that all Brooklyn (Beckham) had to do was click the button.
He’s obviously not going to be doing the lighting, he’ll have no clue of the programmes, the cameras or Photoshop, ... “It’s going to be so well managed – he’ll have the best hair and makeup, the best models, the very best equipment, so that the chance of any risk is greatly reduced."