These days
PHOTOGRAPHER
What just about every scene kid and hipster under the age of 25 calls themselves these days. Many own Canon Rebel xtis and rely heavily on cropping and Photoshop filters to give their otherwise mundane photos an "artsy" feel. It is also not uncommon to see them wielding Lomography cameras (usually a Holga, now that they're sold at Urban Outfitters) on any given day. Typica
lly, these "photographers" cite Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, or, in the case of those Vice Magazine devotees, Terry Richardson, Cobrasnake, or Richard Kern, as major influences, because they couldn't name any other photographers to save their lives. The typical subjects of their photographs include, but are not limited to: pidgeon-toed girls in Converse that have been drawn on with ballpoint pens and/or Sharpies, flowers/weeds growing out of cracks in sidewalks, juxtapositions of objects that typically don't go together (in one such case, a Queen of Hearts playing card on a cracked sidewalk), a girl who looks like something out of an American Apparel ad smoking a cigarette, decaying buildings, and just about anything that looks "vintage" (ie, yellowing washing machines in a laundromat).
16-year-old Dylan took to calling herself a photographer after receiving her Canon Rebel for Christmas, and snapping a few photos of sidewalks in Decatur. "And you represent the bane of modern photography," David replied. Then...
PHOTOGRAPHERS...IMAGE
An image, frequently taken by people with expensive cameras and highly likely to belong to "photographic societies" (a.k.a camera club), that has no emotional impact, social worth, entertainment value or relevance whatsoever but is perceived to display some innate skill in photography. Essentially it's an exercise in composition over, oh I don't know - content. EXTREMELY likely to be converted to needlessly contrasty monochrome using expensive photoshop plugins that do all the work for you. And if you include diagonal lines you'll make other advocates ej*****te spontaneously because, as we all know, diagonal lines are amazeballs. You can easily replicate this at home - find a cobbled street, or a building reflection, or literally ANYTHING that's dull as s**t. Take the image, making sure you carefully remove any items of human interest, fun, variety, reportage or social meaning then turn it B&W, add an esoteric meaningless title and upload to an elitist, invite only Flickr group. Not to be confused with Lomography - these jokers are the arch enemies of real photographers. Google image search for "Edward Weston Attic" - this is widely proclaimed to be a masterpiece by those who value photographer's images. Or Henri Cartier Bresson, another overrated peddler of the "photographer's image".