In the first part of this series I wrote about having fun, and that if you are not having fun what’s the point of even picking up that camera that’s there beside you.

Today, boredom rears it’s ugly head.

Lately I’m going through the motions.  I’ll pick up the camera, go stand in front of a wall, and bang out a photo.  It’s too hot here in Mississippi to go outside, so I’m confined to this small space trying to eke out another turd to upload to Flickr.

And let me interject, if you’re wanting to read a happy article that’s going to make you feel the creative juices this ain’t it.  This is the mopey, end of the road shit here.

I’m bored.  Really fucking bored.  I log in to Flickr and I see people posting less, commenting less.  The stuff that does get posted?  I’ve seen most of it before.  I fave less stuff.  It’s not just me.  It’s others feeling that way.  The scene is dead.  Take this blog even.  It’s been neglected these past few months.  None of us really care to write anything lately. Maybe we’re all sitting around waiting for something to happen.  Some great motivation to land at our feet.

And it’s not happening.

So what do you do at this point?  Say fuck it and walk away in frustration?  I’ve seen a lot of people do that.  Not just crappy photographers, but great ones.  They reach a point where it all becomes too much.  Too much fluff.  Too much crap floating on the surface.

But before I break out the “End of the World is Near” sign and start marching around in a white robe, I know that all creative people reach a point like this.  A doldrum.

You either break out of it or you throw the cards on the table and get up and walk away.

And we all know if we wait long enough, that inspiration, that kick ass feeling of taking photos.  It comes back.

All I know is it’s time that feeling  to be resurrected.

“I have shot four weddings, I have shot four weddings.”  As I sat down to type up this blog that you may or may not be reading, I kept telling myself that.  Me, a “photographer” with just two and a half years of experience under my belt has provided four couples with photos that they will keep for a lifetime…or until the divorce.  You too can provide couples with lasting memories!  All for one special low price, we have prepared the premiere  wedding photography course for you, the novice photographer!

All joking aside, this stuff is hard.  Damn hard.

I shoot with another photographer, Carl, who has gotten us our clients with his connections to the military.  The old adage of who you know definitely rings true here.  We’re not professionals, don’t have the best equipment, but we have enough wherewithal to work with what we have and manage to get some good shots.  Sometimes great ones.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today.  I want to discuss the flops.  The misses.  The ones you pull up in Lightroom and scream, “Oh shit!  I screwed this up!”

Group Shots – I shoot with off camera flash 90% of the time when I do group formals.  I’ve seen way too many photographers use on camera flash which casts shadows on the wall behind all the subjects.  It simply does not look good.  If you’re into shadow puppets and that’s your thing, it might appeal to you.  Most of us are slightly normal and are appalled to see shadows.

Having said that, if you don’t already know aperture controls how much light comes into the camera.  If you shoot at f/22 you’re letting in a minimal amount of light.  If you’re shooting at f/1.8 you’re letting in a ton of light.  Now imagine you have an off camera flash and it is set at 1/2 power.  If you shoot at f/22 then your exposure will be dark.  Very dark.  A simple off camera flash will not produce enough light at 1/2 power to give you an adequate exposure at f/22 (there are exceptions based on the type of flash, but for my purposes just consider the flash I’m talking about your normal flash that you could attach to the hotshoe of your camera).  At the opposite end, if you shoot at f/1.8 then your exposure will be heavily overexposed.  Too much light is coming in.

Making sense so far?  Confused?  Hopefully not.

Imagine this scenario.  It’s my first real wedding.  I set up my flash and umbrella.  (When you shoot through an umbrella you lose light.  So you either have to increase the power of the flash or change your aperture.)  I’m getting people situated into a group shoot and I start banging out photos.  And damn it all to hell.  Needing as much light as I can eke out I am shooting at f/2.8.  The exposure on the back of the LED screen looks great!  Woot!

Then I get home.

I plug the CF card into the computer.

I see the group shoots that in which I used f/2.8.

I have a panic attack.

Depth of field…..depth of field.  When you shoot at such a wide open aperture your depth of field decreases.  So these few group shots have everyone at the front of the group in focus with the people behind them looking all blurry.

Lesson learned.  Shoot at a higher aperture.  f/5.6- f/8.

Missed Shots – Since I shoot with another photographer, the chances we will miss a crucial photo lessens.  But it can happen.  You’re pressed for time, you’re trying to get formal group shots and the families are being slow, and the preacher suddenly announces it’s fifteen minutes until the ceremony!  You wrap up the shots and move on to the ceremony.  You take a few more group shots afterward and then off to the reception.

Guess what.  You forgot to get pics of the bride alone at the front of the church.  In all your haste, with people running around in a daze, tand he bride in a frenzy, you forgot.

The next thing you know a deputy shows up at your front door with a summons and a complaint.

I bet next time you’ll make a list and consult it.

Fortunately this has never happened to me.  I always carry a list.  I consult with my fellow photographer to make sure if I didn’t get certain pics that he did and vice versa.

You only get one chance to get it right.

Equipment - If it can go wrong it will.  Imagine having only one camera at the wedding.  You drop it.  It breaks.  You get sued.  Or the hell beat out of you by a drunken groomsman.

Make damn sure you have at least two camera bodies, various lenses, a sufficient amount of memory cards, and charged up batteries.

At my last wedding I filled up a memory card, pulled it out and plugged in another.  The camera wouldn’t read it.  I took it out, plugged it back in, and it failed again.  Imagine if that had been my only other card.  I keep several memory cards with me.  They can break.  If it can go wrong it will.

The Holy Shit, Hail Mary Moments – Without a doubt, the last wedding I shot was the hardest.  The setting was an Episcopal church with draconian rules about when and where you could shoot.  No shooting at all 45 minutes prior to the ceremony, no flash at all during the ceremony (which isn’t that uncommon),  and the photographers have to stand at the rear of the sanctuary.

A football field sized sanctuary.  One in which not even a 200mm would help.  And it’s dark.  The walls are of a dark wood that eat up light like a kid with milk and cookies.

I’m panicking.   How can I get a shot?  I don’t have enough light even at f/2.  I’m too far away to get a decent composition.  What to do, what to do.

And it hits me.  Lay down.  On the floor.  Give ‘em something different, ’cause buddy you’re screwed as far as the conditions you’re working with.

So ignoring everyone I get down, I put the camera to my eye and click.  I get the shot.

What you see isn’t what they see – My last piece of advice is don’t be overly hard on yourself.  You’ll see flaws in all of your photos if you allow yourself.  You’ll nitpick over compositions, over lighting, poses, etc.

Remember you’re capturing memories.  Years from now the bride isn’t going to fret over whether you used the rule of thirds, or whether Aunt Sally is well lit as Uncle Bob.  She’s looking at those pics as a record of what happened that day.  A recollection of memories, of dreams and hopes.  You might be capturing the last images of a family all together in one place before someone passes away.  It happens.  When I was married in 2002, the photographer took a family shot of my entire family, mom, dad, brother and my sisters.  We hadn’t been in one place together in years.  Six months later my dad died.  It’s the last shot we have of us all together.

So keep in mind your clients are looking for memories, not rules and technical know how.   Those shots that you think suck may be cherished by someone else.

So if you shoot a wedding, be prepared, be diligent, but be calm.  Think outside the box.  And remember, have fun.

As trite as it may sound you’re not just a photographer on that special day, you’re also a collector of memories.

At some point this stopped being fun. Not just this blog, but the entire photographic process.

Before I go any further, think about that first sentence for a minute. A hobby that became turned into passion isn’t fun anymore. It had gotten tedious and trying. Like any relationship that grows stagnant, it was time to let it go. I abandoned my 365 for the tenth time, I stopped posting at the blog, and I stopped leaving comments for my contacts at Flickr.  Every article I read about photography was about being creative and being inspired and all that crap.  The same tired arguments day after day after day.

I think we all inspire to take the best photos that we can.  We read up on techniques.  We buy better gear.  And, hopefully, we become better photographers.

But if you’re not having fun, what’s the fucking point?

My fellow bloggers and I are a critical bunch.  Hell, two of us are attorneys if that helps explain things.  We frequently email each other stuff we see good or bad, and lambast stuff we dislike.  For example, some of us hate the photos on Flickr of people with face paint.  At times I find it boring, ego driven, and cliche.

But you know what?  That person slapping that crap on their face is having fun.  They’re having fun taking the time to paint their face, and having fun taking the photo. They’re not all hung up on whether the photo has any creative merit or a if it makes a statement in the world.  It’s fun to them.

My point is being creative, learning new skills, taking time to compose, etc. is fine.  Do that.  It makes the difference between a hobbyist and someone whose whole heart is in it.

But if you’re not having fun then shake it up.  Stop reading duChemin, Arias, Hobby and all others who espouse articles on a daily basis about the Muses of Creativity.  Stop worrying whether your strobe is properly set up.  Stop worrying whether hacks on Flickr will comment on your photos.  And stop worrying whether what you post is your best stuff.

Think back of when you first picked up that camera.  Go look at those photos.  I bet they suck monkey balls. But I guarantee you had a blast taking them.  Remember that feeling? That feeling before all the technical know-how and the Gear Acquisition Syndrome took precedence over having fun.

Let all the extraneous bullshit go. And for once, have fun again.

As a photographer, you are not an artist. As a photographer, you are merely documenting life and other peoples works of art. As a photographer, you do not create art, you do not create anything, you simply take pictures of what others have created, including God’s creations. Photographers, you are not artists because you do not create. It’s best to think of yourselves more of a historian, just documenting what has already been done.

I’d like you to stop here, go back, read that paragraph above one more time, this time think about it as you read each sentence. Go ahead, I’ll wait… Now, let me break it down for you, see if I can make the insult clear.

The act of photographing something is not the act of creating something. Thus, it is not art!

How does that sentence above sit with you? You’re all photographers, tell me, what does it say about you and all that you’ve tried to do with your camera? Sure, some of you may not consider yourselves artists, but I’ll bet that some of you do. Some of you even like to think of photography as art, I mean don’t they have galleries and hang big impressive looking photographs in museums?

Why don’t we take another look at this. I’ll give you a few examples.

Example 1

Let’s imagine for a second a true artist. A man, he takes three people, three bodies and poses them into position. Then, said artist uses paint and brushes to decorate these three bodies, he spends time toiling over the details, uses fine brush strokes. He transforms the once three bodies into, umm, let’s say a Walrus. When finished, the three bodies, after hours of work, represent a Walrus. Yup, look just like the real thing. Three people all posed and painted, now look like a real life Walrus. This man, no… this artist, has created something. He has taken things and created something from them.

Once all is said and done, lights are set up, a backdrop put in place, a camera comes out, and a picture is taken. This picture is not the art, it’s just a way to document the event, the creation of real art. The picture itself is not the art, it isn’t considered the art.

Example 2

Let’s think of another scenario, this time let’s imagine an architect. This architect spends a year designing a building. He spends hours going over equations, figuring out the materials needed to build his structure. Once the design is complete a team of people get together, gather the required stone and metals. It takes years to build the designed building (or monument) until it is finally complete, done for the world to see, to occupy, to use. It’s a beautiful building, and in time a national treasure, a true work of art.

A photographer comes along set’s up some lights, waits for the right time of day, the perfect sky. He sits there for hours waiting for the right moment until the time comes to click the shutter button. Finally, CLICK! The images is edited, printed, and then sold to thousands of people. This photographer didn’t design the building, he didn’t build it, he didn’t create the sky, all he did was take a picture of it.

Example 3

A well known photographer sits on a hill overlooking a beautiful pasture. A stream quietly rolls along in the foreground while a majestic lake sits in front of towering, snow peaked mountains. Tall, green trees surround the scene, wrapping it in beauty beyond words. The sun is low in the sky creating a golden glow to the landscape and the clouds lay out across deep blue sky like a blanket.

After hours of waiting for the scene to unfold, for the light to be perfect, the photographer makes a few final adjustments to her camera. Finally, after scoping out the location for weeks, waiting for the right weather conditions, after carrying her monster large format camera to the spot… finally, she presses the shutter release. CLICK!

Later, she develops the negative, she makes a print. She reprints the image over and over, dodging and burning here and there to create the perfectly exposed image, she is satisfied. She has a print she is proud of, she shares it with the world, it’s printed in a book, the book is sold to thousands of people, she wins an award.

All the while, some will say that she isn’t an artist. She didn’t create the scene, some will say God created it, some will say it was a product of evolution, no matter… she just documented a place in time.

Have I said enough? Do you get where I am going?

Photographers Are Not Artists

All the above stems from an actual conversation I had with another photographer last week. He argued, yes a photographer argued, that as photographers we do not create art. We just take pictures of it.

Here’s where I call bullshit! Photography is art. Sure, not all of it, not every picture taken could be considered art. In fact I’d even go as far as to say that 99.9% of the pictures taken are not art, but some of it is. There are thousands of photos uploaded to Flickr in a minute, and thousands more being taken at this exact second. Think of it, all around the world there are thousands of pictures being taken at this exact moment. While most are not what some would call “art”, there are surly masterpieces out there. True works of art.

Rather than go into my thoughts on the subject I’ll leave it up to you. There’s a comment box below, let us know what you think. Is photography art?

Photography. Why did you start taking photos? What do you hope to get from the act of being a “photographer”?

The first question is easy to answer for most of us. You may have bought a camera to capture your child’s first step. It could have been because you needed to grab some extra credits in college and though photography would be an easy kick to your GPA. Maybe you picked up a National Geographic as a child and were drawn in by the pictures?

The second question is often a lot harder to answer, as some of you may not even consider yourself a photographer.  Chances are if you’re reading this article, you’ve visited this site before, you own a camera and take a lot of pictures. In that case, label or not, you’re a photographer. So what is it that you hope to gain? Do you want fame, money, a chance to leave your mark on the world? Could it be that you just want to take pictures of those special moments and have them to look back on, to show to your children and grandchildren?

Every time I look up there is someone making the jump from hobbyist to professional. People are buying canned photography websites, printing business cards, and trying to make that leap, trying to make money off their hobby. I admit, I’ve done it. I’ve done the website thing, printed business cards, done a few sessions for people in my neighborhood. It’s gone nowhere. The reason, well, I think it’s because it all feels fake, it feels forced and it isn’t who I am.

Who doesn’t want to turn their hobby into a full time gig? Who doesn’t want to make money doing the thing that they love?

In a perfect world we’d all be doing what we love, living happily off the benefits of our labor. In the real world life is hard, money can be tough to come by and we all need to make ends meet. The truth is, the photography business is over saturated with both good and bad photographers. I’ve seen the joy in the face of a person when I give them a print or they see their images on the screen for the first time. It’s gratifying to know that as photographers we can bring so much joy to someone, give them something to look at and remember the good times, the weddings, the childhoods, families all smiling into the camera.

I don’t pursue it professionally because I don’t think I’m good enough. I don’t think I can deliver what a client wants, as it isn’t my style to go out and force a photo. I’m just not comfortable doing it. Event photography isn’t my thing and I know for a fact that there are people out there better suited for it. I’ve done it, and still do from time to time to breach the “comfort zone”, but the more I try it the less I like it. I know my limits, know what I can and can’t do well, and try to accept that.

If people want a great wedding photographer, or an awesome kid photographer, I can recommend some of the best I’ve ever met. Local people that do a fantastic job. If something interesting falls in my lap however, I jump on it.

This weekend I’m actually shooting a wedding. I shot one other wedding, for a friend, over twelve years ago but nothing I’ve done since. Looking back at everything I just said I may sound like a hypocrite but there is a reason why I’m shooting this, a reason I jumped on it. The people getting married want something different, they don’t want the cookie cutter wedding photos, they don’t care for formal pictures or crystal clear images. They want film, angles, blur… they want something I believe I can deliver. The reason I jumped on this opportunity is because it allows me to approach the event how I approach anything else, I can take my time and capture the night the way I capture everything else. I plan on mixing it up, using both film and digital. I even plan on busting out the Holga and shooting a few rolls of distorted out of focus goodness.

Let’s put aside the money and art nonsense for a minute…

I wanted to talk about something else before I end this, I wanted to mention free photography. Some people frown on offering photography for free. The “professionals” will say that you are eating up their profits or taking money out of their pockets. I say, “Bull Shit!” When I attended the OneLight workshop, Zack Arias wisely said that there are photographers at all levels and clients in each level. There are the $100 weddings to the $20,000 weddings, and the same is true in any form of photography. If you can book a client at $25 then it’s money in your pocket, and less likely that the client would have paid any more for it, because either they can’t afford it or because why pass on a $25 price tag.

The same rings true what it comes to $0. If you can shoot something you want to shoot, something that you enjoy and think you can benefit from, and afford to do it for nothing… then it’s worth it. It’s especially worth it if we are talking something for charity, something to give back to your community. The best experience I’ve had yet as a photographer was doing Help Portrait last year. I took a day, went out with a team of local people and shot portraits in a homeless shelter and a woman’s shelter. You’ll never see those photos, not a single one. We shot the images, printed them on-site, handed them to the person or family, then deleted the images off our computers.

It wasn’t about the money, it wasn’t about building a portfolio, it wasn’t even about getting pictures to post on Flickr for comments. It was about the people we were taking pictures of. It was about seeing their faces when you gave them a photo, some whom have never had a portrait of themselves, or their children, ever. I can’t wait to do it again this year, you should do it too!

So, what’s my point?

The point is I needed to write an article. The point is these are the things that have been on my mind. I’ve been thinking a lot about my photography, what it means to me, what I want to get out of it. I’ve been watching people try to make that leap into the realm of “professional/semi-professional” money making photographer. I’ve tried it briefly, I’ve decided it isn’t for me.

The point is, do what you love! It doesn’t matter if it’s for money or for fun. It doesn’t matter if it’s self portraits, kittens and bokeh. It doesn’t matter if you love shooting flowers, bugs, weddings, children, or models. It doesn’t matter if you are shooting with film or digital. It doesn’t matter if you shoot a Nikon, a Canon, a Hasselblad, your iPhone, or even a one time use Micky Mouse disposable camera.

What matters is that you are photographing what you love and doing it in a way that makes you happy. What matters is YOU!