A Photographer and a baker

The one question I get asked all the time and I dread explaining the answer is such a simple question and a statement all at the same time:  Girl… This picture is amazing, what camera do you use?!  I dread it because it’s such a simple answer but with so much feeling behind it!

Every photographer everywhere gets asked this same question and honestly the answer is the same!  The camera body doesn’t matter, it’s how you use the camera itself!

This is the best likeness/explanation I’ve ever heard and I can’t remember who explained it to me this way but they are a genius!  It’s like this…

Imagine you were eating at a restaurant, whether it’s a sweets cafe or the best meal you’ve ever eaten, and you just loved and adored this amazing meal!  For this example, let’s just say it was the BEST piece of chocolate cake you’ve ever had in your life!

You would never say to the baker… “Oh my gosh, this was the best piece of chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted… what type of oven do you use?!”

I mean that just sounds silly right?!  Heck, I don’t even know the different types of ovens there are.

But you would maybe ask for the recipe!  It’s not the oven that made that delicious cake… it was the baker!  It was her skill and how she crafted the recipe and all the love she placed into her baking!  And to your own credit, if you wanted to make your own delicious chocolate cake to share with friends and family, you wouldn’t run out and purchase the same oven (well you might…) but you would also take the time to learn and perfect the recipe!

It’s the exact same (sort of) with photography!  An image doesn’t turn out beautiful or interesting or captivating based on the camera make or model!  An image comes together because of the skill of the photographer behind the camera body and also the love the photographer puts into each and every click of the camera (much like the love a baker or chef puts into the food!)

So whether you just love photography and are getting started, are a photographer who is asked this same question all the time like me or whether you are someone who just loves photography and having their photo taken… keep this in mind!  Everyone has to start somewhere and starting just means finding that love first and foremost… just like a baker or chef!  That love is what ignites to fire to learn and learning is something that never ends… for anyone!  The equipment just fosters the creativity that is inside!

As photographers we will always be learning no matter how great our equipment is!  We are always striving to learn our cameras inside and out.  We are always learning our editing software and our environments.  As soon as we feel we have conquered our equipment, the world of photography changes and we start all over again learning new equipment and the latest trends!  This is what keeps us excited and on our toes!  It’s also what fosters our community and forges friendships with like minded creatives.

I wanted to blog about this today because I think it’s important to not only to educate those that are interested in pursuing photography further that it’s the photographer that works not the camera; but also to remind us professional photographers too!  It’s sometimes easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the equipment world!  But guess what… you don’t need a lot to make it work at first, just yourself!

Many of us started out with a decent camera and a ton of heart!  We had a need to learn all we could and so we researched and read our manuals and got out there and practiced!  We learned by trial and error and befriended a photographer who was maybe more experienced than us who was willing to share their “secrets”.  We stayed up late and read blogs.  We got excited when we learned new tricks and when manual photography finally clicked… man we celebrated!

We need to remember these days so that when others ask us for help or ask us questions we always remain humble and helpful! Because… we all started somewhere and we all started off in the same place!

Photography is very similar to baking… we all need guidance navigating those “recipes”!  🙂  We all need help seeing that it’s not the oven that develops those amazing results… it’s the chef/photographer and the heart and love that it takes to create them!

Each chef/photographer is different and that is what makes us special!  You don’t have to be fancy.  You don’ t have to have a background in it.  Some are self taught, some are professionally trained and some just have a natural love with no desire to be “professional”.  But we all share the same desire and that’s to create a legacy!

Will you help someone else learn the trade?!