What is a Photographer?

No this is not a trick question. I am truly asking what you think a photographer is, and I don’t mean someone who takes photos. All photographers take photos, but that is not all that they do. Even if we just state what they do as a part of the technical aspects of photography a photographer does a lot. Photographers must for make sure all their equipment is in working order and clean. Then after getting to a location and spending anywhere from an hour to eight hours of actual taking the photos during the shoot, and might spend another hour or two setting up and then cleaning up before and after the shoot. Then it’s time for editing if the photographer can get everything done in a single shoot. So here is the general rule of thumb when editing photos take the time of your shoot and multiple by it by three and that’s generally how long it will take to edit your photos. Say you spent six hours taking photos multiplied by three means you will spend about eighteen hours editing photos. Now that’s subject to change it could be more time or less depending on several factors, but that is how you should get a pretty accurate estimate of post-production/editing photos. That’s not all of course a freelance photographer you must market your abilities and be able to run a business by yourself or as head of a freelance photography LLC possible with several photographers working for you. So, besides the actual brass tacks of the job you need to build and maintain a client base, can balance your expenses and do your taxes, as well as market yourselves to expand your client base possible with commercial jobs. So that’s the business aspects and technical aspects of what a photographer is and does. But we are more than just business. We are more than just another job. We are visual storytellers. Each photo we take tells a story of the moment we capture in our cameras. We capture memories, ideas, and feelings. Then we use those captured frozen moments to tell the stories of what we feel, what we remember, and the ideas we wish to convey. So yes, photographers take pictures, but that is not all that we do. In an upcoming post I will be presenting my interview with Jim Richardson National Geographic photographer of thirty years and we can hear about what he says a photography. 

“There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.”

— Robert Frank