Blog Post By: Jake Sleger
Ever since taking the plunge into my dream of becoming a photographer, I have been asked the same question: “What do you do for a living, nowadays?” So, how do I answer this grand question? I respond by saying “I’m a photographer, both family and commercial. On the commercial side of things I shoot food, portraits, interiors, and still lifes for advertising purposes.” There is nothing really exciting about this question or my answer to it. The questions they ask after the initial ones are what are interesting. There is one question in particular I feel warrants discussion–since I am asked it quite often. The conversation usually goes something like, “What kind of camera do you have? You know, my uncle has a great camera, and it takes amazing pictures.”
I politely respond to this by discussing how you only need a “good enough” camera and the rest is all about how you use it. At this point, I swear they think I’m lying to them. This thinking is ingrained into the minds of most people: The better your camera is, the better your pictures are going to be. The photographer behind the camera is also important, but not the most important thing. They also believe the longer your lens, the better your pictures are going to be. Why is this?
Now, if I had responded to their initial question with “I’m a writer” instead of “I’m a photographer”, do you think they would have continued on to ask what kind of pen or paper I use? Would they have claimed that because I have the newest version of Microsoft Word, I must be a better writer? If I had responded that I was a surgeon, would they have asked what kind of scalpel I use when I operate? They wouldn’t. And while I will recognize that the camera is a very important and technical tool and deserves some amount of credit, it is certainly not the most important tool.
Being a commercial photographer is all about making decisions and being in control of the situation. The second you are being paid to do a job for someone else, everything changes. The ability to create controlled, purposeful images is what being a commercial photographer is all about. Anyone with a great camera can get lucky every once and a while, but you won’t go very far as a commercial photographer if most of your jobs rely on luck. This industry doesn’t tolerate photographers who don’t produce the images they are paid to produce. There is no such thing as, “I’m sorry, I promise I’ll take better pictures the next time you hire me”.
Most of the time, I work with a fully manual camera with fixed focal length lenses. This is how I learned as a photographer and how I continue to work. This process makes me think about every decision I make, and I have found that this leads to more purposeful images, not just lucky snapshots. As a photographer, I’m not hired because I get lucky often, I am hired because I am aware of what I’m doing and making creative decisions which shape the images I create. As far as luck goes, I am lucky to love what I do for a living.
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