Have you ever wondered what makes a photographer, well, a photographer? I have, many countless times. Is it just because of the fact that I can shield my face with a camera and a lens the size of my arm and the weight of a leg? Is it because the shutter goes click every time my trigger finger squeezes down? Wait. Can’t a five year old do just the same? Granted, the results may differ slightly. Many people ask me what do I do. My answer, photography.
Suppose someone the likes of W. Eugene Smith walks up to me (which is unlikely since the man is dead, and I say this with all due respect for the man) and asks me, “What do you do?” Would my answer still be the same? Would my answer still be the same but with a little bit of hesitation and a hint of stutter? I suppose the latter would be likely.
I always wondered what it would be like to travel and shoot images that would land on the cover of magazines. And I don’t mean your Cleo’s or Travel Destination Weekly. I am talking National Geographic, Life, Newsweek to name a few. These guys have been through it all. War zones, watching starving kids die, blood and broken bodies that would put horror movies to shame, persecuted, kidnapped, being aimed at, being shot at. You name it. All these to get just that one image that would make your jaw drop at the possible expense of their own lives.
So am I a photographer? Well, I love taking pictures. And there is a sense of true satisfaction when someone other than me is pleased at what I took. So, yes. I suppose I am a photographer. Just a little different. Someday however, I might just have that chance to fulfill this desire of traveling and taking pictures the likes of these guys. But then again, my wife might just kill me first for trying.
I leave you with this picture, taken by Pulitzer Prize winner Oded Balilty. It is a picture that has impacted me the moment I laid eyes on it, and till this day, it is my utmost favourite. Perhaps one day, I will take a picture like this.
© Picture taken by Oded Balilty
