So you think owning a DSLR makes you a photographer? Think again!
Demanding a Digital Single-Lens Reflex Camera (DSLR) as a birthday present is a new trend that everyone seems to be jumping on to. It is definitely a new way to fit into the hip status quo of today. Once you become the owner of an expensive, high resolution camera, every street corner and every stray cloud will suddenly become exquisite and poignant enough to capture.
Every shot will become a masterpiece. You upload it under your name, adding ‘photography’ as the watermark, and watch as it receives a huge amount of praise on Facebook. Hearing compliment after compliment, you start to believe that you should do this professionally. You start believing that you are in fact... a photographer! So, you begin to capture more pictures, become an expert at using Photoshop to hide your mistakes and start sending your work to every online freelance company. Once you have enough pictures in your portfolio to start a business, you inform customers that you can do everything that professional photographers can do for half the price. In this way, you become a photographer, or at least you think you’ve become a photographer. But that’s not actually the case at all.
While owning a DSLR certainly makes photography easier, it does not make you a good photographer. It only makes you the owner of the camera. Photography needs learning. If you have talent, it needs to be polished. You need to learn the ins and outs of how to work with light, angles and all the other skills of established professional photographers.
An expensive high resolution camera with all its pretty buttons will obviously give you its best result, but more than half of the people owning a DSLR don’t even know how to properly use it. Doing the hand movements with the lens, taking the time to adjust it and fiddling with the buttons may make you look rather sophisticated and professional, but admit it, you’re really just trying to figure out what those buttons do without making a fool out of yourself in front of your jealous friends, who watch your camera hungrily and wish they owned it instead of you.
Looking at a clear picture can refresh anyone’s mind. But professionally, you have to do more. The people going through random pictures don’t look at them from a professional’s point of view. It is you who has to be creative enough to learn various techniques and skills, the art of lighting and different angles. This will set you apart from amateur photographers who can be found under just about every other rock and will keep you from taking shortcuts to success without hard work.
All this expensive equipment really does not matter. Even professional photographers usually buy cheap products that can get the job done just as well as the high-end ones. It’s their knowledge that sets them apart, not their equipment. Often people with expensive tripod stands, interchangeable lenses, huge camera bags, and expensive cameras may act as if they are professionals simply by the weight of their accessories — but they actually have little knowledge of what they clicking.
Save your money for something better. For the price of a DSLR and its equipment, buy a plane ticket and a 16 megapixel digital camera instead. Enjoy the change of scenery, refresh your mind and capture the happy moments with a small, yet reliable digital camera. Trust me. It will be worth it.
Prices:
Just getting into photography? Great! When you’re looking for a DSLR, keep our price guide handy. All these cameras come with a lens and local warranty, except where mentioned.
Nikon D3100 Rs46,000.00
Nikon D3200 Rs60,000.00
Canon 600d Rs62,000.00
Canon 650d Rs72,000.00
Canon 60d Rs88,000.00
Nikon D7000 Rs140,000.00
Canon 7d Rs145,000.00
Nikon D600 (Camera Only) Rs178,000.00
Canon 6d (Camera Only) Rs195,000.00
Canon 5d Mark II Rs250,000.00
Nikon D800 Rs290,000.00
Canon 5d Mark III Rs390,000.00
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, January 13th, 2013.
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COMMENTS (19)
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We must take things positive. This article just says that one with opportunities who is into photography must go for it proper training to get professional in real sense rather than ending up with buying a heavy camera.
All it needs is "Patience" & a lot of "Focus". A degree helps improve your skills no doubt. It would be wrong to say that a proper degree won,t help at all. you have to know about proper light, aperture, & technicalities & all it comes from books and a degree.
Khalid Soomro saab I am just so sad that an author given such a platform and all she's doing is critiquing the people who are just merely at the stage of exploring. The critique is not even healthy but bashing such generic things that one discusses in a drawing room without any research on why and how and what made them do that. Marketing ones self and being professional in the field is not even their priority but at an initial stage making some money is. Because If any one of those things would have been their priority they would never come into the market with bad skills or try hard to ruin their reputation by producing the work that is not up to the mark of the client. They are endless reasons that i can disagree with the tone of the article though i am not disagreeing with the issue... but the power an author has and provided on a platform like this a reader expect some sensible approach / angle towards the issue based on some intensive research. Or even if there was... none of it is in this article for sure. Its nothing personal... just a feedback of what i felt from it. You can disagree with it.
Read your article just now.
It is correct to say that fancy equipments don't make good photographers. But you need high quality stuff to bring out the details. It is a learning process and good equipment forces you to learn. Nowadays, cameras have become very user friendly and more often than not, people take better photographs. Too many now believe themselves to be, as rightly pointed out by you, professional photographers.
Just a definition: In modern photography, a professional photographer is simply the one who earns atleast 75% of his total income from selling photographs or doing assignments related to photography. This definition never mentions the quality or uniqueness of the photographs taken. It is simply assumed that whoever earns over 75% income from this trade is a pro. That is it.
I don't agree that one needs any fancy degrees or diplomas to become a good photographer. It simply means that Sadequain or Rembrandht needed degrees to become painters. World's greatest photographers are often self taught. I myself work part-time for the World's largest Stock Image selling company based in US, Getty Images Worldwide, and I have no diploma or degree on photography.
I think the article depicts reality, it doesn't seem personal but a sincere suggestion to those who sincerely want to adopt photography as profession rather as a hobby. Writer has tried to build awareness in distinguishing between hobby and professionalism. @Ayesha Saeed, don't be so hardhearted as you are putting a lot of effort and definitely learning it and doing it by understanding its functions and technicalities. This is what the writer is trying to encourage. I thinks she wants a serious photographer to do what you are doing. This article supports you, and is in the favour of people like you.
Silly article. Not everyone who has a dslr aspires to a be photographer. Please look up the word HOBBY in the dictionary.
For the price of a DSLR and its equipment, buy a plane ticket and a 16 megapixel digital camera instead.
Comparing a point and shoot to a dslr is quite ridiculous. Try taking low light pics with your 16 MP point and shoot. If you want a smaller camera instead of a bulky dslr, Buy a mirrorless camera instead, like the Sony nex or canon EOS M etc
It is not DSLR owner fault they can afford it. Same with iPad, MacBooks, etc.
Whatever they do with it is their business. You dont come out of womb with dSLR skills.
This is gonna pinch many. Well done , I am sharing it at FB :D
@Ayesha Saeed: infact the reply to the article seems better than the article itself. i myself have observed the sarcastic tone in the article.
"Save your money for something better. For the price of a DSLR and its equipment, buy a plane ticket and a 16 megapixel digital camera instead. Enjoy the change of scenery, refresh your mind and capture the happy moments with a small, yet reliable digital camera. Trust me. It will be worth it."
So which camera do you own? Only fair for you to disclose that information too.
I have seen many professional photographers with the best equipment taking ordinary photos, and as many amateur photographers with an ordinary point and shoot camera taking extraordinary ones.
totally agreeable.
in past i have worked with a few so-called photographers after getting impressed with the pictures in their facebook page, and yes i would agree to the fact that they do charge a bit less, but the quality output is nowhere near.
i hope the trend changes... at least the part where they fool themselves as being some awesome photographers.
Hats Off
I am getting one, whether writer likes it or not.
I don't like the tone used in this article, I was expecting the author to tell some short tips on photography instead of just criticism and at end it turned into a price guide, yuck. The author must know that, not all great people were graduated from Universities. The skill, talent and creativity is god given most of the times.
Oh well ! if somebody have interest in photography and he can afford a DSLR then what's wrong in it ? and I must tell you that the real artist don't go for just professionalism . They satisfy their artistic urge. and of course if one can make money by his creativity and being amateur gets the same results as a professional do, and for half of bucks, than what's wrong with it ? Every person who have interest in singing, plying music instruments or passion for driving, or collecting post stamps, everybody thinks that he is great, he is talented and i See no harm in it as far as they don't harm any body. What was the actual point of this article I am still wondering about it !!!
Awesome article! You could provide a link for some online retailers instead of mentioning prices here. Prices written here may become out of date.
I am extremely disappointed with the tone of this article and specially when it is coming from Pakistan. I am a graduate of NCA-Lahore and currently studying Photography in SAIC. With due respect Ramsha Tofique I understand the frustration and anger of how people are using the name of the technology to cover up their skill levels but what is wrong with it specially in the country which is trying to grow. What is wrong with people learning new tools and trying to show off. They are contributing something to the community. I agree that getting fancy equipment doesn't make a you a good photographer and for quite some time i also was in your position. But I reanalyzed of how i was looking at things. We do not have any professional Photography school of excellent reputation in Pakistan. We don't even have qualified teachers who knows the history of photography and then they are so many aspects of photography... fine arts, commercial , landscape and the list goes on... but all this doesn't give anyone a license of telling people of how to invest and how to develop an interest or how to earn.... I personally know a lot of people who got a nice camera ... knows a little bit of Photoshop and they do this for a living to support their education/ family or themselves. It doesn't only happen in Pakistan ... same things are happening in real developed countries too. This is only a phase that every struggling photographer goes through ( almost every). I myslef got interested in the domain because of experimenting with stuff.Whatever I am at the moment is heavily invested with the phase i have been through. If I haven't gone through that i would have never known that certain kind of things happen in an art world.
I agree with the fact you are saying but i completely disagree with the way you put it. We need inspiring writers in Pakistan who can inspire people ... give them an angle to see things differently not discourage them or push them away...
We are already short of motivating teachers, friends, colleagues and professionals... And no university or college degree can make a anyone a good photographer. Anybody with a passion can become one. Now i am not saying here that we do not need colleges or schools or teachers but I am referring to those artists who become successful and have a good reputation not because of a formal training but of their passion.
Its good to write about these issues but not to address what mess is happening but to address and inspire people who are doing it and informing them or at least giving them a slightest of direction of how to improve or better their approach... by showing them the possibilities and things they will be able to achieve by doing that.
Hope you will think of what I mean.
great article...!!
I haven't read the whole article but "a diploma and a degree" are necessary for being a true photographer? No way! No 'degree' makes you anything unless you're really into it. This rule works for every discipline. I think photography is a skill an illiterate can learn equally well as a PhD!