these days means little more to most people than having a phone or buying an expensive camera and setting it to full auto.
Taking what they get because an image is just an image, right?
I feel sick when I look at photographs that have been photoshopped into submission.
Jpeg files that leave little room for development because so much is lost.
I still shoot film quite often and develop my prints in a borrowed darkroom.
The possibilities of what an image can be are endless.
When I shoot digital, I shoot RAW.
I’m amazed how many digital “photographers” I come across who have no idea what RAW means.
Maybe it’s wrong, but I dismiss them immediately.
Getting lucky now and then doesn’t make one a photographer.
It makes them lucky and cowardly.
A true photographer realizes that yeah, once in a while, we get lucky, but knowing when and where to shoot is an art.
Up hours before sunrise.
Hiking miles in the dark.
Sunburned and thirsty, dirty, scraped, wet, exhausted and sometimes bleeding.
I will likely never be a “discovered photographer”, but being real is more important to me than faking it.
I feel the light, hear the wind, understand the rain.
As do my fellow photographers.
We see beyond the end of our lenses.
We are what we shoot.
And proudly, we work for our shots.
We are a dying breed, but at the end of the day, understand what it really means to be a photographer.
A Photographer's Heart 