Do Photographers Exist Today?

The photography world is full of questions. Many of these questions are met with few answers and even fewer absolutes. Perhaps the biggest question of all is: “Do photographers exist today?” This far-reaching and highly existential query concerning the nature of photography as an occupation takes its place among other high-brow and worthy contemplations that often creep up from the back of my mind when the hour grows late: While you chew on those interesting concepts, let’s dig deeper and try to discern whether or not being a photographer has evolved into something entirely unrecognizable.

I’ve never self-applied the title of “photographer” to anything I do. My tastefully understated business cards speak for my truth. That’s not to say that, for the sake of simplicity, I haven’t given generic answers to equally generic social questions by saying I am indeed a “photographer and writer.

” There’s just no way around it in some situations. To illuminate the full story of what I do with any reasonable degree of requisite detail would be virtually impossible. Even though, for the greater part of the past decade, I have worked exclusively in the realm of photography, I never felt like a “photographer” in the true sense of the word.

“Photographist” always seemed to be a better-fitting pair of socks for me. It’s an antiquated English word essentially meaning the same as “photographer” yet encompassing other tangential duties spanning a greater scope .