Shutterbugs

I don't aim for perfection in my photographs, rarely take money, have never considered myself in competition with anyone and always leave the studio sessions to the people who make their living with a camera, those who are far more learned and professionally equipped.  I shoot to satisfy my artistic and creative side.  I shoot for the love and sheer pleasure of it.  I shoot to pay it forward to the musicians who have given me so much for so many years.   And I shoot because I love my animals and they will not always be with me.

I live in a small city that's home to a good many professional photographers - more than we need or want, some would say - and as expected, there are bad ones, adequate ones, and great ones.  They do it all - weddings and family portraits and head shots, events and festivals, class pictures and sports and pets - all with varying degrees of skill and creativity, flair and affordability.  There are artists and hacks, all far more technically proficient than the rest of us, most with studios and custom equipment and years of experience. I know most of them from my years at the photo store, can even claim friendship with one or two, and as a general rule have great respect for their dedication and ability - the very same dedication and ability that I see in the half dozen or so less well known photographers that I run into all the time, those who have day jobs and shoot for most of the same reasons I do.  We want to be a part of something we do reasonably well, to express something that we can't find words for, to capture a mood or a feeling or maybe just a moment.

So when one of the more plain vanilla photographers posted what was either a backasswards compliment or a slightly nasty shot at me, I made up my mind it was well meant and decided not to be offended.  I've lived too long, I told myself, to waste my time on a small minded, insecure man who sees competition where there isn't any and can't help but try and demean it.  (Well, okay, maybe it stung me more than I cared to admit, but I did try to be a grown up and did not respond.)  It was the second shot that did it, a wider brushed remark that, to me at least, read as a put down of all non-professional photographers.  

This from someone who is a one man Olin Mills, I fumed to myself, No imagination and marginally talented at best.

I reminded myself of my earlier advice, that I've lived too long to waste my time on a small minded, insecure man who sees competition where there isn't any and can't help but try and demean it.  I reminded myself of this several times, like a child writing I will not tell a lie on the after school blackboard.

Yeah.  I always had trouble with that blackboard thing.