The Luck of Being Ready

I mentioned in my first newsletter that the definition of a photographer as opposed to someone who takes pictures is a distinction worth considering. This is a theme I I'll be returning to time and again. It's not as simple as you may think. A musician is someone who plays music. That's simple enough and implies, by comparison, that someone who takes pictures is a photographer. Not so fast.

Matt Stuart writes, "If you don't have a camera on you at all times, you're not really a photographer." That's a move in the right direction, I think. But hold on, don't we have a camera on us all the time? That smartphone you're carrying--there's your "camera on you at all times." As evidence I submit exhibit A:

I was out on a morning walk with Cooper, my little terrier companion, and saw the above doll planted next to the road in a neighbor's yard. I had my iPhone with me and snapped the photo. It was no more complicated than that. Camera at the ready.

Several years ago I participated in a workshop in New York at the offices of Magnum. The workshop was led by Constantine Manos, whose work I admire a great deal. Over the course of three days several other Magnum photographers came and went. Two of them, Larry Towell, and Paul Fusco, presented to us. Here is why I mention this, all the photographers coming and going, Towell and Fusco included, wore cameras. Fusco, I recall in particular. He was very animated and used a lot of gestures in his presentation, his arms swinging in and out and up and down, standing forward then darting to the side. And all the time his little Leica bounced this way and that. Do you recall the classic Avedon portrait of Lee Friedlander?

No smartphone for Mr. Friedlander, no sir. Rather a brick of a Hasselblad draped around his neck. Now there is a photographer in all senses of the term.

I draw no conclusion from all of this. Smartphone/camera, Leicas and Hasselblads, does it matter? I am going to leave that question on the table. Consider it at your own risk. But I will say this. Regardless of the tool you use, what is of utmost importance is training yourself to think and see like a photographer. That is the path of the mindful photographer. And as I march forward with these little missives I will try to articulate what that means to me. I will leave you with this. Drawing again on the image of the musician, the photographer must also practice the craft, must also build muscle memory into the physical act of taking a photograph, and most importantly, practice to see the world as a photographer. As Blake Andrews has observed, "If you don't expect to see good photos, you won't. If you expect to find them, they are everywhere."

Thanks for reading. You can find me at Doug Bruns Photography.