The Love You Take ...

Every young photojournalist -- or at least when this photojournalist was young, it was true of me -- approaches every demonstration with visions of Stanley Forman's Pulitzer winner, or some other great moment that every old guy has overlooked in his nonchalance.  And every young photojournalist eventually becomes one of those old guys, knowing how every demonstration plays out the same as the last one, aware that moments that win Pulitzers are rare and special things ... and something that could happen at any time.  So, yeah, they go to the demonstration with the exact same hopes.

Really, photography is a special thing, a giving of yourself that everyone gets to see and, eventually, criticize.  And if you make a career of it -- a real career -- it's something that you have to dedicate yourself to wholly.  If you go to that demonstration thinking, "I'll just grab the usual couple pictures of the speakers, maybe a nice reaction shot of the crowd and a wide to show the size, then I'll be done in time for a nice lunch" ... well, you're just not trying, and you will be at best a mediocre hack.  You always need to be looking, hoping, convinced that the one great picture is out there, no matter how boring and commonplace the event.  Every parade might have a little boy talking to a cop on the sidelines.

By extension, if you're just doing this on weekends, if you're the most dedicated of hobbyists, if you have real talent and all your friends say your pictures are better than what they see in the magazines, but you still are doing the day job, well, you may make photographs, but you're not a Photographer.

I have friends who fancy themselves photographers.  They've spent money on gear and time perfecting their craft.  Some have shot jobs for pay.  I look at their pictures -- they're often quite good -- with patience and care, commenting as honestly as possible while remaining polite, but I still can't help regarding them as photo tourists, slumming for a while in the artsy scene, then claiming the title and expecting respect.

I resent that they think they can dip into photography, make some pretty pics in their spare time and collect a prize or two at the local art fair, and then go on with their more profitable lives.  It's like someone putting in a decent time in a 10K and then claiming equality with an Olympic athlete.

You can point out that they've made some great pictures, and I won't disagree, but a weekend softball player can make an astounding triple play ... and he still doesn't deserve to be in the majors.

Here's the thing -- and perhaps I'm now stretching the sports metaphor to the breaking point -- pro athletes didn't just wake up one day and say: "It would be fun to play ball for a living."  They start working in childhood, practicing, going to summer camps, refining their skill in order to reach their level of work.  Many don't make it; are they treated as equals?

I just think that professional photographers -- people who have worked at it, given things up for it, dedicated their lives to it -- deserve some respect for the time and effort and success that we have now spent a lifetime on.  (God knows we'll never be paid appropriately.) And you're welcome to put in that time and sacrifice and join us.

In the meantime, I'll look at your pictures and praise your talents, however meager or grand, but don't act like you're a true Photographer until you've committed everything to it.

This is the problem with things like the Chicago Sun-Times firing ALL their photographers and replacing them with iPhones.  Or, rather, it's one of the problems.  They fail to value photography because they've put no effort into it.  The "leadership" at that paper, and at all the other places that think they can use viewer videos and reporter snapshots and unpaid interns and freelancers who are really housewives and dentists and stuff, of course are happy with second rate material from people who aren't full-time professional photojournalists.  The new "photographers" are people who have not given themselves over to photography, and so they do not value it.  They're happy with a cutsheet and maybe $30.  "Wow, look at me, I'm a real Photographer!  Would you like fries with that?"  This is the easy way for the editors, and less effort is required, less dedication to the craft (and that means the craft of journalism as well as photography) is necessary all the way around.