Its a small point but worthy of a Snap

I recently read a post on Pixelated Photography blog by David du Chemin.

The post attacked people who refer to photos using words such as “pics” or “snaps”.
Being a freelanced and somewhat inexperienced competent photographer, I agree with his post.

An excerpt from his blog:

I’m not being pedantic, and I’m not trying to make trouble, honest I’m not. But honestly, if I hear one more person refer to the hard work of one of my friends as a “pic” I’ll, well, I’ll snap.

Words matter. We put so much effort into our craft, hoping to create work that resonates, that’s more than the sum of its parts. We wrestle to discover our vision and then to express it with these limited tools. We create work that we’re proud of. We hope, some of us, to bring that work to the broader world in books, exhibits, and prints. We risk. We fail. We triumph.

Consistent SLR users who churn out photo after photo on to websites, whether it be facebook, flickr or their blog, need to be taken seriously.
There is a wealth of energy and finest that sometimes goes into each image and that marks that photographer from the rest.

The first step is to start calling them photographers shooting our photographs.
Finally, I wanted to end with an excerpt from another photography blog, Photofocus. Though the post primarily answers “What camera should I buy?”, I wish to emphasis the passion,vision and story telling which goes into each photo.

Photography is about having a vision, a good eye, passion for the subject, great light, access, storytelling and heart. The camera equipment is just a tool designed to help capture the rest. I don’t know a single professional photographer who’s ever told me an editor refused to buy an image because the photographer used the wrong camera. It’s your eye, your vision, your ability to tell a story with the camera and your desire that matter most.

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~ by chanmanonmission on July 5, 2010.