What kind of photographer are you?

So last week I got this call from Ian Luff motivation asking me to come out and shoot a driver training day that they were putting on.  Details were a little sketchy, and the offered fee wasn’t so good, but I decided to do it because there was a bit of an opportunity to get my name out there with a few people in the bizz.  The problem was, I had never ever shot anything like this before in my life and, now that I am half way through processing the photos, I’m starting to think about what kind of photographer I am, and what kind of photographer I want to be.

A pretty good photographer that I quite admire once said, “Never turn down an opportunity to create art”.  Those are words that I have tried to live by ever since hearing them a year or so ago and to date they have served me pretty well.  That is, until this job came up and I suddenly realised that I never asked myself the question, “what do I consider, ‘art’?”.  The problem is, I have been thinking that ‘art’ is anything to do with picking up and camera and taking photos.

This is totally not true.

Photography is, at it’s root, a documentary medium.  We see things in the real world, point the camera, press the button to capture that image and freeze it for all time.  Of course, the ‘trick’ is creating things in the real world that are visually interesting and that is where photography becomes art.  This is the space in which I prefer to operate where I am constructing images and creating ‘art’, rather than simply capturing moments.

So what happens when you are asked to do the complete opposite and photograph an event essentially becoming a photojournalist?  You freak out and take way too many photos, most of are just plain crap, that’s what you do.  Or at least, that’s what I seem to have done.  I shot a total of 1068 photos in 7 hours!  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I have absolutely nothing against photojournalism and I really admire those photojournalists out there that are able to capture life as it happens and at the same time create visually appealing images.  I’m obviously just not one of them.

So, back to what happened with Ian Luff.  For those of you who don’t know Ian, he is this crazy driving instructor and motivational speaker.  His son is Warren Luff who can be occasionally caught racing for Dick Johnson Racing (aka Jim Beam Racing) in the V8 Supercar Series.  Ian’s a good bloke, if a bit eccentric.

Anywayz, the event was for LPG Australia and Ian was hosting it as part of “Driving Experience” to show off all the LPG products available, the savings of running LPG and the actual performance you can get from an LPG powered vehicle, blah blah blah.  I was asked to come out and take photos of the days events.  Nothing specific apart from ‘lots of head shots’ and ‘photos of those signs over there’.  Pretty vague, but I did my best.

So there I am trying my best to just capture the day with only a vague description of what the client wants and a tiny little fee to motivate me.  This was really the first time ever that photography had felt like a job and I didn’t like it at all.  Not one bit.  One of the things I have always loved about photography was it’s ability to make me a few bucks while still feeling like I was just ‘playing cameras’.   The fact that this actually felt like real work has made me stop and think as to why.

I think the answer is that, while I was busy trying to be a photographer, I forgot to ask myself what kind of photographer do I want to be.  I don’t want to be a photojournalist.  I’m just not entirely capable of creating an interesting image from something that is happening in real time.  I like getting in there and tweaking the scene, moving lights around, moving cars or telling people to smile, jump or whatever.  I think that now that I have figured out that I’m definitely not a photojournalist, if I’m ever asked to do that type of photography again I will be a bit more relaxed about it.  It’s the pressure to perform that makes me rush and not think about what I’m actually trying to achieve with each shot and find other ways to ‘tweak’ the scene to get the image I want.   I think with a bit more practice I will be able to do a better job than I did.

So do you know what kind of photographer you are?