In many areas - music, drama, and sport for example, the term "Amateur" has its own connotation. This is no less the case in photography, and still continues to present a difficulty. In the recently developed City & Guilds photography scheme for non- professional photographers there was considerable debate as to whether the term should be used, because it seemed to carry a pejorative innuendo. Too many people confuse "amateur" with "amateurish." Many of the candidates for this examination are undoubtedly professionals in all kinds of areas. Some may be pursuing courses as a creative leisure pursuit, others may be doing so because they wish to use photography as an adjunct to their professional activities. For example, is a teacher who uses photography in the classroom as a tool to enable his children to attain educational objectives other than photography a professional? He may be a professional teacher; is he a professional photographer?
The Royal Photographic Society does not distinguish between professional and amateur; whether a print is saleable is irrelevant. Nevertheless amongst photographers there still remains a slight tension which is not easily resolved; the reality is that there is ample room for both.
If some of the quotations below are anything to go by, the controversy was as vociferous in the early days of photography. Here, with little comment, are some of the stances that were being taken in the previous century, and it may be a useful exercise to identify the prejudices and misunderstandings, where they exist, and compare that with one's own view.
Thomas Sutton, in 1857:
"Photography is yet in its infancy, and it offers to the intelligent amateur a field for readily gaining distinction as the author of valuable experiments. Let him consider whether he will occupy his spare time and cash in producing photographs of more or less merit and which may be doomed to fade before his eyes, or whether he will employ the same opportunities to advance the art. Professional photographers have rarely the time to bestow on experiments, and they are generally too ready to "pooh, pooh" all innovations. On the other hand, a large class of amateurs are equally ready to "try" all new processes, good or bad."
Jabez Hughes, in 1863:
"..it is not to be wondered that the impulses forward should emanate rather from the amateur than the professional. The former pursues the art for pleasure, the latter for profit. The one can try all manner of experiments, and whether he succeed or fail he secures his object - agreeable occupation. The professional, however, has all his energies directed to make things pay. He has too much at stake to speculate. He chooses the safest way. He is the true conservative, and when he gets hold of anything that works passable well, changes with reluctance. If an amateur experiments with a new toning bath on a batch of perhaps half-a-dozen prints, and fails, well the loss is not great, and he gains in knowledge and experience. But the professional has his batch of perhaps six hundred, and if he fail, the loss is something considerable.... The advance of photography is something like the progress of an army. The main body keeps in safe marching order, while the more daring and adventurous are the pioneers who lead the army - rushing here, feeling their way there; always skirmishing, often retiring, but eventually succeeding in finding new tracks and safe paths for the main body to securely pass along."
Article appearing in "Amateur Photographer", 27 March 1885:
"The amateur is, presumably, a man of more cultivated education and greater leisure than the professional photographer, and may reasonably be expected to have a keener sense of the aesthetic principles, and a more educated knowledge of the history and science of art than his professional brother - better skilled though the latter may be in the technique of his art."
Peter Henry Emerson, in his book "Naturalistic Photography" took precisely the opposite point of view:
"In reality professional photographers are those who have studied one branch of photography thoroughly, and are masters of all its resources and no others. It is not a question of £.s.d., this "professional" and "amateur" question, but a question of knowledge and capacity. An amateur is a dabbler without aim, without knowledge and without capacity, no matter how many of his productions he may sell."
Alfred Stieglitz, in 1899:
"Let me here call attention to one of the most universally popular mistakes that have to do with photography - that of classing supposedly excellent work as professional, and using the term amateur to convey the idea of immature productions and to excuse atrociously poor photographs. As a matter of fact nearly all the greatest work is being, and has always been done, by those who are following photography for the love of it, and not merely for financial reasons. As the name implies, an amateur is one who works for love; and viewed in this light the incorrectness of the popular classification is readily apparent."
© Robert Leggat, 1999.