In the article “Take back the Tube!” Buckingham, Pini and Willett make one very interesting point. They say, “One of the abiding imperatives in the publications [they] have reviewed is the need to distinguish between the serious or committed amateur and the more casual everyday user. The serious amateur is defined to some extent in terms of social class and gender, but also through the ‘othering’ of the naïve everyday user, who is seen to remain forever trapped within the unreconstructed ‘home mode’.”
At first read I thought that the term ‘othering’ might be too extreme a word in contrast to the self/other relationship to colonialism and orientalism. But then I think in the pure sense of self and other, this could not be truer. I’ve seen and experienced first hand what happens when one with no prior knowledge tries to engage in conversation with an amateur photography of filmmaker. I’ve received turned up noses, lectures and even ended conversations and friendships for reasons such; as not knowing what an iso setting is; what a Leica is; or thinking that a Sony could be better than a Canon.
My problem is when people get too proud of the product to see that their work is bad. Whether professional or amateur, the work you produce will always be better if you enjoy what you are doing. When you get too hung up on the quality of picture or the best optical zoom and you stop having fun, that’s the day that you have let down the camera.
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