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02/01/2005: "How to be a good photographer"

Music, Photography, Filmography, Painting, Calligraphy, Singing...all of them are fine arts. So what does it take to be a Musician, Photographer, or a Painter? I can play Mary had a little lamb on my flute all I want and call myself a musician...but I'm not. I can take pictures all day, and not be a photographer. So...wheres the line?

You can only learn so many things about a fine art. There is only so much book work you can learn. You learn theories, about your tools of your trade, and the history. But what good is knowing about a size 4 painters brush made from authentic horse hair if you dont know how to use it? You will only end up producing a 1st graders paint project made from any other brush...or even fingers.

You can write music all day long. You can pour your blood and sweat into it, and be proud of it. What counts is how you and other people feel it. You feel its a masterpeice that should be put next to Bach and Beethoven, however your audience feels it is in the mainstream of modern classical, and detest it. What you put into it is a huge part, its what you feel and learn inside.

I can learn about every peice of photographic equipment. I can tell you all about the latest technologies...how they work, what they do, what their intentions are. I can take pictures with a camera, and yet not be a real photographer. I can have people pay me for my pictures, and still not be a photographer.

Its what you consider yourself to be.

To be a photographer, a musician, artist, or any other talented profession...it has to be you. Great photographers are born, not made by other people. Some people are born photographers at the age of 10, some are born photographers at the age of 35. You must learn every day of that lifetime. There are no set rules with your trade, only what rules you make for yourself. Im sure for every person there comes a time when they say 'Im finally a photographer...' or 'Im finally a singer'. No amount of equipment can make *you* that. Its raw talent and determination. You have to prove to yourself that this art IS you.

You live the life, you learn by experience, you show your work to the world, and then maybe one day if your mind says so and reguardless of popular opinion (though having support helps)...you can say your an artist. I have another few decades to learn. Now...a canon 10d would certainly help things out...but its not a nessessity.