這是來自 PBS NewsHour 的一個節目「Brief But Spectacular」，訪問了攝影師 Ken Van Sickle，確如其節目名稱所述，很簡潔的訪談，卻帶出了相當宏觀的視野。攝影師在 23 歲時住在巴黎，僅夠能力買一些菲林拍攝。有天他出席觀賞 Chet Baker 的爵士樂表演，整夜只拍了兩幅照片，而一幅更是模糊的，那是一個與今天截然不同的世界。甚麼是攝影師？

如攝影師所述，這是一個任何人都有相機，任何人都在拍照的年代，科技的進步無疑讓更多人可以拍照。但是！也只是讓更多人容易拍下很差的照片，「攝影」的本質其實從未改變過。或許你因為身處某個現場 (例如親見興登堡號飛船空難)，你所拍的照片會是好照片，但你依然不是好的攝影師。為甚麼？因為你不可能每天重覆再拍，所謂出色的攝影師，就是貫徹而一致地，以其個人風格不斷拍攝及創作。

攝影師指出，他的作品好與壞，並非看極端銳利度，而是看構圖，看他如何觀看事物。

(或許你因偶然碰上事件，拍下震撼的照片，但跟每天跑新聞衝現場的「攝影師」，卻是無法相比)

訪談內文 (節錄)︰

Technology doesn’t change the way photography is. It just — it makes it available to more people, which means there’s going to be much, much more really terrible pictures taken or pictures that are totally dependent on subject, which is all, all right.

If you were there when the Hindenburg caught on fire, and you took a picture of it, that’s a great photograph. But you’re not a great photographer, because you can’t repeat that in everyday things.

What a great photographer does is, they are consistently able to make something in a style that’s personal to themselves. My pictures don’t depend on extreme sharpness. They depend on the composition and on the subject and on the way I see it.

想看訪談全文內容，可到「What makes a photographer when everyone is taking pictures」瀏覽。

via PetaPixel