Photography is a great hobby of so many people, it’s also an awesome profession.  Personally, I am a picture taker, not a photographer.  I take lots of pictures, but years ago, I gave up carrying a real camera in favor of my cell phone.  I love my Nikon, but let’s face it, all I did was point and shoot anyway. That’s what a picture taker does.

A photographer knows something about the camera and how it will react.  Now, I’ve taken classes in photography.  I have studied composition, F stops, aperture.  I still know nothing about them.  And please don’t get me started with how little I know about Lightroom and Photoshop…at this stage of the game, I can open the programs, but that’s about it.

When I frame a picture, it’s generally to cut something out of the background, not because the composition fits any rules.  I too often, center my subjects, then I hear a little voice that reminds me not to, so I shift ever so slightly.  I know that my photo should be blocked in thirds, but for the life of me, I don’t know why.

In my profession, I meet a lot of photographers, real people with real cameras and the knowledge to use them.  Many have studied photography professionally, some just loved it enough to get good at it.  I am proud of all of them and respect their work.  I see awesome shots every day.  Some of them highly process them, others turn them loose untouched.  All of them have a big investment in their equipment, but most importantly in their time.  There was a meme going around not long ago about paying photographers in “exposure” instead of in cash.  Let me tell you, everyone I know already has exposure, if not, I’m going to give it to them, and you can’t eat with exposure.  Do yourself a favor, if someone takes a photo you love, pay them for it.  Most are super reasonable, they just want you to acknowledge the effort that went in to the shot.

So back to picture taking…I love taking pictures, but I recognized a long time ago that owning a Nikon didn’t make me a photographer.  I’m going to continue snapping photos, I’m going to continue to shoot in to the sun, I’m going to continue to make bad choices.  But every once in a while, I’m going to get the shot, like this one, one that I didn’t set up, didn’t even know I’d gotten until later.  Keep clicking my friends.