My entire career as a photographer, I’ve been taught to say something incredibly nasty. If someone says, “Oh, you’ve got a nice camera,” we’re often told to remind people that it’s the photographer who makes the images first. And this is true, but much of the vernacular around this is often really rude — when in reality, the person saying what they did perhaps didn’t mean anything rude at all. Instead, what they were saying was coming from a place of love. I don’t think that people doing something from a place of love for us should be handled rudely. Instead, it makes more sense to educate them with kindness.
As I talk about this, ask yourself this: from a place of love, can you explain why you needed to be snarky to someone who possibly didn’t know any better and isn’t impeding on your copyrights at all? Granted, if someone is impeding on your copyrights, that’s a different story. But that’s not what’s happening. No one truly is harmed in this entire verbal transaction.
First off, we need to recognize that these people mean well. They’re trying to give us a compliment, and that’s the most traditionally taught one. These days, everyone has a nice camera in the form of their phone. But it’s not the aesthetic or ergonomic masterpiece that you’re using. It’s instead a way for them to try to send a bit of love your way. So when you’re snarky and say something like, “And you’ve got a nice mouth for compliments,” the idea doesn’t really register.
Instead, it’s up to us to make people understand that we’re using it to make art. Further, then, it’s up to you to actually make good images with it that you can’t make easily with a phone. And even beyond that logic is the idea that you’re making images that no one else can really easily make with a camera. Instead, you need to be creatively expressive.
Can you do that? No? Here’s a list of how to do this:
- Show them a website of your work. Not your Instagram. Your website — be official with it.
- When someone asks to follow you on Instagram, redirect them to your website so they can check out your work. However, have them also find you on Instagram there.
- Tell them the stories about the good images you made. But tell them the creative side of it first, and then tell them why your work is also so technically awesome. Quite honestly, no one cares about your shutter speeds unless they’re an actual photographer. They care more about and understand your emotions so much easier.
- Remind them also that the camera is really just the tool you use in the same way that a painter uses a brush. Sure, the tool can do something very specific, but how the photographer uses it really matters.
If we, as photographers, don’t educate others about the arm we’re making and how it’s different from everything else out there, then they’ll never understand. As it is, photography struggles to really be considered an art form. People just don’t think about it as such because the barrier to entry is so incredibly low.
Considering all of this, I also believe that photographers should carry prints around of their work. Overall, you should be official. Most importantly, you should be far beyond just the random guy on Instagram photographing beautiful women just for a bit of the attention economy.