Do you know what photography is? No, I am not speaking about the principles along which cameras and suchlike work. I mean photography on a larger scale – photography as a lifestyle.
There is hardly a person who hasn’t held a camera in his or her hands at least once in his or her lifetime. Most of us take pictures now and then. But the difference between the man who takes pictures and a photographer is actually larger than between a cheap and simple camera and a handheld monster used by professionals.
The photographer is a specific breed of men, who may look exactly like all the others, yet being completely different on the inside. Both an ordinary man and a photographer may admire a beautiful view; yet, there is a noble insanity inside the photographer’s head, that will make him roam the wilderness with a camera weighing several kilos in his hands, making dozens and hundreds of pictures of everything that catches his fancy, deaf to the moans of those who were unwise enough to accompany him. It’s not enough for him to see beauty – he wants to capture it and improve it – hence hundreds of shots of one and the same thing.
To become a photographer, it isn’t enough to buy a professional camera and learn all the tricks about light, shadow, flares. Until you haven’t this passion for capturing what you see and making others see it as well, you are just a man with a camera. Change your way of thinking, learn to look and see, find interesting and original in trite and boring, change reality by catching it within a frame – and you will understand what it is – to be a photographer in one’s soul.