Some occupations are entered through an accredited system. Want to be a teacher? Get a teaching license. Want to be a nurse? Get a nursing license.
Some fields have final milestones: Lawyers have to pass the bar exam. Doctors have to pass boards.
Engineers gets jobs after engineering degrees, and business students get jobs after internships.
Through classes and accreditation and hours of on-the-job training, you can become recognized as a certified __________. It's a clear process and timeline.
The arts are different. What signifies that you've made it? What distinguishes you as having moved past a "student" of your field? When do you cross the line from a hobbyist or amateur to a professional?
Nothing.
Nothing. at. all.
There is no accreditation process, to say, becoming a musician. There's no licensure to become a writer, or a painter. There's no exam to qualify a photographer. Or a filmmaker. Or a dancer.
You just keep producing things, and in the beginning you're a novice and at some other later point you're a professional. When do you even make the transition from, say, someone who works on film projects, to a "filmmaker?" Or someone who writes, to a "writer?" You can't even really argue that it changes when you do it for money--history sure tells us that getting paid for your work does not an artist make.
It's just this arbitrary point.
It's not exactly pin-pointable.
And I've heard others also squirm in embarrassment and fear that they know what they "practice" but don't know what to call themselves.
Man, that's how I feel.
I've been so terrified to use that "photographer" word. I think by definition I've been doing a bit of it. I've been taking other people's photos and I want to keep doing that. I'm investing significant time and resources into it. I'm reading books and learning from forums and signed up for workshops, all trying to learn and practice. I've gotten paid for it.
But somehow making a blog that says "Jennie Brown Photo" and telling people that I do this makes me feel like a big fat phony. I mean, it's not like I'm *qualified.* But I can't figure out how to qualify myself other than to keep doing what I'm doing and take a couple thousand more pictures, you know?
So, in answer to your question:
Are you a photographer now?
I'm mostly just still Jennie, and I'm just being a little more open about something I've been doing a lot of. But I'm also realizing that in order to be able to get more opportunities to do it and make it sustainable, I have to tell people that I am, in fact, a photographer.
I know I'm nothing special. It's not like I think I'm the next hottest thing to happen to photography or have some *artiste* complex. I cringe a little knowing that I'm another young Utah mom with a DSLR. It's embarrassing, really.
But I also know it gives me an adrenaline rush when people ask me to take their pictures. And another one while we shoot. And I know that I don't have to be the biggest, hottest, next thing to make something that I and others can be happy about.
And I'm really going to have to get over this embarrassment thing to keep learning and progressing. That's the other important nature of working in the arts (and, well, everything). You have to keep putting yourself out there and embarrassing yourself to get any better. Which I intend to work at.
So, without further ado: