Photographers are junkies, well sort of…

Really, most photographers are junkies – they fall into one of the following groups”

1. Equipment Junkies – these are the photographers that have bounce around from camera to camera, lens to lens, etc.  Nothing wrong with this, as long as one realizes that they enjoy the equipment more than making photographs.
2. Format Junkies – 35mm, medium format, large format, ultra larger format – these photographers can’t find a format that is their own, each time they try one format they will see someone work and think that is the format for them.
3. Process Junkies – Silver Gelatin, Silver Chloride, Platinum/Palladium, Gum dichromate, Van Dyke Brown, the list can go on.  These photographers will often times never master any process but will think they are well versed in each process they have attempted.
4.  Forum Junkies – these photographers prefer to talk about photography rather than going out and making photographs.  Pre Internet days, they would spend a lot of time looking reading photography magazines or hanging out at camera clubs talking about the latest new photo gadget.

Most photographers I know will fall into one of the list of junkies above in some form or fashion.  Sometimes we have to pass through a phase to find our photographic voice, so the list is not meant as a bad thing.  It is when the process, equipment, etc becomes the focus that it is no longer about photography, but something else.

Sometimes a snap-shot is just a snap-shot, a photograph is just a photograph.  Other times a snap-shot or a photograph is art.  It is good that we have snap-shots to remind us of events, people or places that are(were) part of lives.  It is also good to have photographs that not only remind us, but ones that we want to hang on our walls and share the Art with others.

So consider what kind of photographer are you?

Some of us just to take photographs and sometimes art.