Stop Calling Yourself a Photographer

It is holding you back.

I have always hesitated to call myself a “photographer.” The word feels heavy, weighted with expectations and definitions that don’t quite fit me.

For one, photography has never been my profession. And in my mind, “photographer” sounds professional—a title for someone who makes a living through photography. If I ever use it to describe myself, I immediately cushion it with qualifiers. “Enthusiast photographer,” I might say, because I am enthusiastic about photography. That feels safer, less presumptuous. I like it far more than “amateur photographer,” a phrase drenched in stigma. “Amateur” should mean “someone who loves what they do”, but it usually comes across as “someone who isn’t good at what they do”.

Street photography 30 floors above the street level.

But there’s a deeper discomfort. The word “photographer” feels… incomplete. It says what I do—practice photography—but it says nothing about why I do it.

If I take photos to tell stories, wouldn’t “storyteller” suit me better?

If I take photos to document history, shouldn’t I call myself a “documentarian” or “journalist”?

If I take photos to explore humanity, am I not an “anthropologist” or even a “psychologist”?

Sometimes I use photography to share how I see the world, to give shape to ideas that are my own. Does that make me a philosopher?

And what about the other “whys”? If I aim to inspire others, am I an inspirer? If I want to show the beauty in the overlooked and the ordinary, am I a beautyteller? If I hope to enrich my own life through unique experiences, is there a word for that?

Maybe some of these words don’t even exist. Or maybe I just don’t know them—English isn’t my first language.

I am having trouble wrapping my head around it.

But it isn’t about vocabulary. It’s about how we define ourselves, and how those definitions can limit us. Reframing them can reshape the way we approach our lives and eliminate the boundaries that we artificially set for ourselves.

When I stop thinking of myself as a “photographer” and instead focus on the why, the possibilities expand. If I am a storyteller or “beautyteller”, how can I tell my stories in the most vivid, compelling, and engaging way? Is photography enough? Could combining other mediums, like writing, film, or audio, result in even more powerful stories?

I don’t have all the answers, but I know that I don’t want to be confined by a single word. I don’t want to shrink my identity to fit a definition that feels incomplete. I don’t want that incomplete definition to dictate my actions.

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