[quoteRight]Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second. – Mark Riboud [/quoteRight]
Being a photographer and being an artist are two very separate things. Can they be combined? Yes, Of course, if you are willing to work your ass off. But don’t get the two confused as being the same. More often than not these days I see people who are photographers calling themselves artists, and people who are artists calling themselves photographers. Most anybody can learn to operate a camera properly or take a good, technically correct photo. Composition, sure there are lots of rules for that that people can learn too. An artist, however, is entirely separate from technicalities and rules. An artist is controlled by what compels them, by what speaks to their soul and a desire to share that with others or express it in some form. An artist could care less if he got the rule of thirds correct or if the exposure is just right if an image holds no other meaning or emotion. An artist doesn’t need L glass lenses or 30,000.00 cameras to create something of value. So stop comparing yourself, your work, and your equipment to everybody elses, and ask yourself instead: “What do I have to offer that nobody else does? What is it that touches me on a level that makes me NEED to share or express those things? ” Your heart, your perspective, and your experience are yours and yours alone. Follow your those things, screw what the rest of the world thinks about the technicalities, and you can’t go wrong. Technicalities can only take you as far as a “Good Photo”. Technicalities, good focus, and correct exposure can’t express an emotion or evoke feeling if your heart isn’t there in the image. If you don’t feel it, don’t click it!
(one of my favorite “portraits” of myself ever taken by Chandra of Photogher.com at one of my favorite places in the world in Texas. When I “feel it” this tends to happen….the boots come off the camera comes out, and for some reason there is usually water involved.)
