What Value Do You Add?

Photo courtesy jj8rock at Flickr

Back in the days before camera automation and digital photography, it took a fair amount of skill to create a well-focused, properly exposed image. These days you can do it with the cheapest point-and-shoot digital camera, simply by pushing a single button. You don't even have to have your eyes open (but it might help). Visit a photo sharing site such as Flickr and you'll see this thesis proven tens of thousands of times over.

Given this fact, the question becomes "What value do you add as a photographer?" What is it that you do to make your photographs something more than just a purely mechanical process? Is it your subject matter, your color palette (or lack of it), your lens choice, your framing? What is it that makes your photographs worth looking at, not just for a few seconds, but for months or years at a time? When you start tackling issues like these, you start to realize that the answers aren't in your equipment; they're located somewhere between your ears.