What does a Photographer do?
That’s a pretty hard question to answer concisely. Photographers do many things during the timeline of creating an image. Most people think that the point at which the shutter is pressed, the work is done. In fact it took quite a lot of effort in some cases to get just to that point and the work continues after the shutter is pressed. Many photographers feel the pressure every time they press the shutter as they know how much work there is every time they capture a new image.
For some photographers, the work flow is natural and they don’t feel every step as it happens, the decisions that they make are a natural process all the way to the final output and delivery of the image that they wanted to create. Others, get lost a long the way and can get stuck trying to make a decision about a small detail. Many photographers prevision an image that we want to create. Regardless of the type of photography you are doing, you imagine an image that you want to capture and you set out in your mind deconstructing how this image will be captured. What kind of light, depth of field, what lens to shoot with, how the colours look, do I shoot black and white, do I shoot from a low angle, do I shoot from a high angle, how should the background look, where is the location, do I need a filter, do I need lights. There can be hundreds of questions to answer depending on the type of image we are trying to create.
Using off camera flash and a slow shutter to convey speed and panning to focus on the eyes. Lots to balance to create this image.
All of this starts the second we are asked to take a photo or we decide to create an image. This is when the pressure starts. The more practice you have the better you are at making these decisions and deciding on their importance. Some things you just can’t decide on until you are there creating the image. I think sometimes, subconsciously people are drawn to photography because they like making these decisions and being in control of the outcome. They like being able to align this process with the final image. It is one of the things that I like about street photography. There are so many variables that you aren’t in control of, yet somehow, every time you go out you return with images that feel new even though it’s the same streets you have shot on for years.
A foggy day to make a familiar scene different.
I was once told that a photographer is a problem solver. This is true about many jobs. You solve a problem for a client and now you have something that you can charge for. Looking at photography in this way, you are solving problems so the outcome can be an image. Even the controls on the camera are a sort of problem solving tool, they deal with the speed of the subject, the distance to the subject, how much light is in the scene, how you want the scene to be captured, how much of the scene you want to capture. There are dozens of decisions to make every second. Seems kind of masochistic at times.
Light plays a major factor in how something looks. You can’t control the sun but you can adapt, with the pano style cropping it adds interest to the scene.
From the non-photographers out there, there is a disconnect to what a photographer does and say the camera on your phone. There is always a simplified version of photography and this started long before camera phones and digital cameras. point and shoots and consumer film were the options not that long ago. those cameras had some good results but not the same as today. While you can make some good pictures with these simplified tools they don’t solve the problems that a photographer does. Most photographers can solve these problems and make it seem effortless. To the untrained eye, that unseen effort is why many think that photography is overpriced when the bill becomes due. When you don’t know what you don’t know, it can be hard to explain to make someone understand just how much is involved. Hopefully the images can speak to some of that effort.
Sometimes you just have to wait. I was shooting in a busy area that strangely had no people. I was composing the shot when one person walked across the frame making the image much better than if they weren’t present.