There’s a funny meme going around on Facebook and now Instagram that is essentially harmless, but is so close to the hearts of many different photographers. It’s a play off of an old Batman comic where Robin is being slapped by Batman. It has been used for a number of different subjects, but the most recent is with regards to natural light photographers. Now, we’ve spoken about this subject many times in the past, and have been met with opposing criticisms as well as praise. The majority of us are very pro team “make your own lighting and use all available lights.” And many times, the term “Natural Light Photographer” is often just seen as a crutch.

When photographers first start out, they hide behind a number of smoke and mirror tactics to make themselves seem bigger and better than they are. So they call themselves “Natural light photographers.” It’s been coined as a term to make them seem more artsy but ends up either sounding very snotty or amateur. When they suddenly learn how to light, how to see light and finally how to see and interpret how color will affect a scene, then their entire personality and the way that create images changes. In fact, they often then change over from capturing to creating–which is a whole other conversation.

We’re not going to egg anyone on or shame you for your artificial lighting intolerance, but we will tell folks that in the end you’d honestly be best off when creating images vs just capturing. The idea that photographers have done so much in the darkroom with edits and creating there vs in-camera has been going on for years; but today is a new game. It’s so incredibly easy for someone to try to add artificial lighting via the post-production process. But in the end, that makes you a better photo editor and not a creator.

Get it in camera, folks!

Meme used with permission from the creator: Timothy Hiatt.