Belle Photography: entry

How to be a photographer

Every now and then I get an email asking how to be a photographer. Photography is a big field with many avenues to explore and to find yourself in, so understanding how to start can be an important step towards being a photographer.

But first we should talk about what it means to be a photographer.

If I were to give any advice, I’d tell someone this: don’t be a photographer. Yeah, photography is great, and it allows you to live a lifestyle that not many people get to live, but don’t be a photographer, be a communicator. That’s a big distinction, and if you get it wrong, you could spend a lifetime going in the wrong direction.

if you get it wrong, you could spend a lifetime going in the wrong direction.

Photography is really just the means. The communication of an idea is the end. You see, what photographers are really trying to do is to communicate. They want to transmit ideas from their perspective to others, and they’ll use a camera to do that. But don’t mistake the camera and lens for the end. And that’s where many people get tripped up; they think that if they have the cameras, lenses, software, that they’ll be a professional photographer.

But, professional photographers are simply communicators that use photography in the same way that an artist uses a canvas to paint his masterpiece. The artist would be foolish to focus all his attention on canvases, brushes, and easels. You might laugh, but that’s exactly what people do with photography; they study the cameras, the lenses, and the tripods, and they think that’s all there is to it. But really, those things are just the means to help you communicate your ideas, just like the canvas is a blank sheet for the artist to paint his masterpiece on.

So, once you understand that photos are just the means and the communication of ideas is the end, what should you study?

A master photographer understands that his life’s work is to communicate ideas

A master photographer understands that his life’s work is to communicate ideas. His realm of responsibility lies in ideas. So, he studies colors, people, clothing, backgrounds, emotions, light, dark, etc., and all these things are just the means he uses to communicate the ideas he has. Why this color and not that one? Why this person and not that person? Which way should that person face in the photo, why? Which background to use and why? Every single thing in the photo will communicate something. That’s what the master photographer understands. So he eliminates those things that take away from his idea, and he adds things to the photo to bring out his idea and make it more clear.

So what should you go into? Focus first on what you want to say. What ideas do you want to share with the world? Fine tune that understanding. Get intimate with your ideas. Then, you can move onto the expression of those ideas.

Anything that helps you fine tune the ideas that you want to express in this life is worthy of study. Focus on building and expressing powerful ideas, and you’ll then see a camera for what it is; it’s simply a tool.

Don’t be a photographer, be a communicator.

- Daniel Vineyard
bellephotos.com