I actually have business cards that state that. Apparently, there is no local or world body that regulates the profession and I can legally call myself a Photographer without any formal certification to attest to my skills. I’m not certain what the title even refers to. Does it simply mean that I know how to create a picture? Or that I have access to equipment that allows me to create a picture?
When I first started taking pictures (setting aside the snapshot days), I needed to learn concepts about film sensitivity, depth of field, aperture settings, shutter speeds, focal planes and the whole chemistry of film and paper exposure and processing. Making pictures was both art and science when I started. From the arcane relationship between light and how film and paper reacts to it to the technical aspects of mixing chemicals in the dark and watching pictures form in a little tub of developer, then stabilized in the stop bath then reaching permanence in the final fixer bath.
The concept of film speed is virtually lost in today’s digital cameras and I doubt that the majority of modern photographers really understand what film sensitivity really means or how to take advantage of aperture or shutter priority settings. Apparently, this doesn’t prevent modern practitioners from making some truly extraordinary pictures, in spite of their apparent ignorance of the origins of the arcane art. After all, most contemporary painters don’t grind their own raw materials in order to create their paint pigments yet they still manage to create art.
Still, I think I have some advantage over some of the newcomers to the art of photography, even if it serves little to further my own contribution to the world of photographic arts. I can probably execute my vision with fewer exposures or camera clicks than my contemporary brothers and sisters. But in a digital world, where quantity can compensate for quality and a few extra clicks costs nothing but a few moments of review time, does it really matter?
I suspect not. In the end, its the image that matters. And a picture, despite inflation and modern economics, is still worth a thousand words.