what you think non-photographers make of professional photographers - what are the conceptions and m

One of the main misconceptions of our practice is that "everybody can do that. Its just point and click". Non-photographers see our medium as a more of a source of fun, than a serious artist practice. This is due to accessibility of practice, the modern world is revolving around the visual image and our technology is doing the same. The more it evolves the more the general public loose empathic connection to our art. I feel this is because of the amount of images we are exposed to everyday. You could see a hundred different portraits in a day, ranging from a selfie to a full self portrait encased in context and artistic expression. But because we are seeing so much our minds are loosing the focus our practice needs to be recognised. By taking images on there phone or camera that could be up to, or even of a higher quality than a professional photographer a non photographer pulls apart the fabric of our practice. The idea of a photographer being judged solely on the quality or definition of a image is what really shows the gap in professionalism. In the world of professional photography we know there is more to an image than its aesthetic quality. The images are formed by many different components, informative and contextual content, position and line, structure and form the list goes on. Where as a non photographer would take an imags for a solely aesthetic purpose, which us as professionals should circumvent, of course the aesthetic quality of our images is important and should always be a main focus,but without context or reason we loose our professional edge and become more of a snap happy paparazzi of visual interest.