Please contain your laughter for the end of this post.  Despite what you might be thinking, I am NOT a professional model.  But I was in desperate need of a new head shot.  I thought about having Jami do it or maybe asking one of my photographer friends to give it a whirl, but I really didn’t want to bother any of them, and then it occurred to me… digital SLR cameras are soooo easy to use, I’ll just have my daughter take the picture.

Meet the Photographer

This is Sydney.  She’s 5.  She likes watercolor painting, riding her bike and building forts out of pillows and blankets in the living room.  Until this weekend, she was strictly forbidden from touching any of my camera equipment.  But then I thought, what the heck, lesser qualified people do it, why not her?  After a brief explanation of Canon’s auto-focus system and the mechanics of shutter release, Sydney was in business.  I should point out in the above picture, Sydney was giving me some direction from behind the camera about body posture and what I should be doing with my arms.  The resulting image was a variation on the ballerina pose that she suggested.

Photographer vs. Button-Pusher

The problem with the final image is that the person who pressed the shutter release doesn’t know why the resulting image looks the way it does.  She cannot recreate the image if she tried to do it again.  She has no idea why she chose to shoot it at f/6.3 rather than f/2.8 or f/16 or why the exposure was 1/200 of a second and not faster or slower.

The reality is that modern camera technology has made it considerably easier to take a good picture with little or no training.  Even on consumer-grade DSLR’s, setting the dial to “P” (P stands for Program, by the way, not Professional) pointing your lens in the right direction and pressing the button can frequently yield a pretty decent shot, at least if the lighting scenario isn’t too complicated.  Throw a bright sky into your background,  a dimly lit church, some very bright mid-summer-day overhead sunshine, a fast-moving subject or patchy shade and you’re probably going to want someone with the experience to deal with those scenarios… consistently, particularly if it happens to be the most important day of your life where retakes are not possible.  I suppose my point is that creating an accurate exposure, something a button-pusher can do, is not the same thing as manipulating light and shadow in a creative and deliberate way.  From a client standpoint, the difference between the two can often be difficult to ascertain since even a button-pusher gets lucky often enough to build an adequate portfolio.

You have to Start Somewhere

This post is not intended to be mean-spirited or even a slight jab at photographers just starting out.  You have to start somewhere and my beginnings, by no means, are all that much different than those just buying their first “real camera”.  Most, if not all, photographers start out as button-pushers.  Button pushing is where the intrigue begins.  Button pushing often results in happy accidents… those shots where what you got was much different and much better than what you were expecting.  Shots that make you wonder “how do I do that on purpose next time?”

I’ve seen a lot of cyber-bullying amongst the photography community lately, no doubt cultivated by our unfiltered access to social media, but I think it’s highly unproductive.  Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the like have provided photographers and prospective photography clients with a unique way to connect.  These outlets are tremendous tools to foster mentorship, collaboration, and client education, and yet, in many cases, I’ve seen it used to non-constructively criticize photo enthusiasts who may just be finding their way.  Some of the best talent I’ve seen coming into the field are incredibly young (maybe not 5, but not a whole lot older) and ambitious button-pushers who, once they acquire a little more experience, better equipment and learn to be more compelled by light and shadow than the tricks of which Lightroom and Photoshop are capable, will probably make all of our heads spin.

In the meantime, Glamour Shots® better watch out, in a few years, Sydney may be able to give them a run for their money.