The 4 Types of Photographers

i've been thinking a lot lately about the gap between the kind of photographer that i am and the kind of photographer that i want to be [Music] i think we all have this we all experience this we have an understanding of where we are and we know that that's never where we want to be we always want to strive and grow if we don't have that we probably shouldn't be doing this i don't consider myself an artist i consider myself a creative in thinking about my work recently i i've come to think about is like those you know the different mindsets the different types of photographers there are and the conclusion that i've come to at least for now is that there are four types of photographers the technician the craftsperson the creative and the artist while there are distinctions between those it doesn't mean that they don't cross over you can be an artist and not have all the technical skills in the world you can be a creative and not be a master of opposing you can be a technician and not have an artistic cell in your body the technician i view as someone who has a real understanding of their equipment understands light understands their gear their camera their setup and it is able to replicate something over and over and over again you might just be pushing a button that could look like high volume photography school photography mall santas easter bunnies things like that where you have a defined setup the set is set the lights are set the camera is set nothing changes and you're just hitting a button maybe pushing out some images on a sublimation printer making a ton of money in the process but it requires a technician's brain another example of a technician might be an archival photographer at an art gallery or a museum i know a couple of people who do archival photography work and it is very very technical the lighting has to be perfect if you're photographing um a painting another one might be a headshot photographer headshot photography can just be very technical and especially if you're producing the same looking headshots over and over and over and over when i go in to a company and i'm shooting uh you know 15 25 50 head shots in a day i'm just a technician at that point everything's set up i'm just pushing a button and doing the same thing over and over and over it's not creative it's not artistic it you're just doing technical work and that's fine that there's good money in technical work next we have the craftsperson and when i think of a craftsperson i think of someone who's like really good at other crafts they they of course they understand the technical work they understand their camera they understand their lenses they understand light they can control all of those things but they're they're taking that from the level of technician to the level of craft person and i think of someone who might be an architectural photographer or an interior photographer portrait photography boudoir weddings those types of photographers are craftspersons acting headshots are the job of a craftsperson that's what i do a lot of i would consider myself a craftsperson when i'm doing that kind of work so craftsperson will really understand lighting they'll understand posing they'll be able to take their work and elevate it to something that is remarkable could resemble a piece of artwork that might be displayed in someone's home does not mean that their work is not creative or artistic it is just not created for the tent of being um creative work or artistic work and you'll see what i mean in a second now the creative this is where i feel i personally lie the primary job of the creative in my mind according to these types of photographers that i've developed for my own way of thinking is that a creative's job is that of a problem solver so when i get a brief from a company it's my job to take the technical skills that i have the craftsman skills that i have and solve their problem so the brief will outline what their problem is and my job is to do something that is very specific to their needs that will solve their problem when i shoot brand photography this is what i'm doing commercial photographers are generally creatives they're problem solvers they're food photographers advertising photographers editorial photographers branding photographers academic photographers they are someone who is coming in and focusing on a very specific set of problems and using their skills to solve those problems and provide results in a solution that fits the client's needs creative work can be technical it can require craft skills it can be artistic but it is generally problem-solving and finally we have the artist when i think of an artist i think of someone who creates work with meaning intention has has a message to it the work might be made to be displayed um in a gallery or or privately in a collector's home but an artist is doing work with intention and meaning that is my definition of what an artist is what separates an artist from all the other work creative work is solving a problem there's maybe some meaning in the solution but the artist is saying something with their work they're they're expressing who they are they're expressing their ideas and their opinions through the work that they create they're showing that to us based on what they create with their work they're typically not always but typically photographing in a style that can be very clearly visually their own a lot of the work that you do for yourself for your personal projects is going to be artistic work it may not necessarily be expressing something but that artistic work is going to get you commercial jobs and so we do personal projects so we can we can catch people's eye and then they can say oh we want to hire them to shoot this campaign that has absolutely nothing to do with the kind of work that i just loved from them and that's typical and that's fine we're still getting hired and we're still getting paid now in addition to these four types we could look at them as mindsets i think of them more as a venn diagram and there there's areas of overlap between all of them and i think there's also a fifth that we have to employ sometimes and that is the mindset of a student when we're experimenting and discovering when we're in the studio we are studying we're being students students of our craft students of the technicalities of the new equipment we may have purchased we may be experimenting on a technical level to create work at an artistic level at different points in our career we need to tap into those different mindsets we might need each of them on a single job and that's what i think is really exciting about photography is that it's always a challenge it's always how how am i going to solve this problem that's why i consider myself a creative because like i'm a problem solver and i think that's what's exciting about this work for me is i want to figure out how to solve problems and and that's where i think i excel as a photographer but also as a person as a brain wrapped in a meat suit so what i want to know please leave a comment below is what kind of photographer would you consider yourself and do you think there is a gap between where you are now and what it is that you want to do and what is that gap and what do you think that you can do to fill that gap or to like cross that bridge to get to where it is that you want to be your next step your next level as a photographer let me know