What is a photographer
What is a photographer anyway? Is it the professional, the artist, the paparazzo, the teenager on their digicam on a Saturday night, the tourist with the iPad, someone who takes photography seriously?
I really don’t know what the boundary of the definition is. Only 20 years ago I would have easily said those who make a living from photography, those who invest a significant amount of time consuming and using photographs from which to eek out a living.
Today photography is oversaturated with photographs. My kids would consume far more photographs in a day than I would in a month. They take far more photographs than I do too - almost a continual documentation of their day.
I think if you work in the industry you are a photographer. Just as the recreational tennis player isn’t by definition a tennis player. I feel I needed to write this out to sort it out in my mind and hence redefine the definition in my head. It seems that though photography and it’s uses and mediums have changed, my definition of what a photographer is hasn’t. That’s reassuring!
© Christian Pearson, Photographer - 2026
Camera: Nikon FM-2, Film: Kodak Gold 200