Creativity Monday: On Labels & Creativity

The other day, I mentioned to someone that I’d walked to my errands because I like to stop and take photos along the way. “Oh, you’re a photographer?” he said, and I immediately demurred. “Oh, no—definitely not.”

Huh?

I love to take photos. But to take on the label of Photographer (of course it’s bold and has a capital letter) felt awkward and just.plain.wrong.

(I imagined Real Photographers pointing fingers at me and shouting, “That woman is a fraud!”)

After all, I don’t have a fancy camera. I use my aging point-and-shoot or more often, my phone. I’m not into the technical side of things like f-stops and shutter speed—I really have just zero interest in the technical things although I feel like I should. Logically, I know that knowing about these things will make my photos better but in reality, my brain just goes to sleep at the mere thought.

And I never set things up. Or, “style” them. If I show you a pile on my desk, that’s just the way it looks.

But I love to take photos. And I take a lot of them. In fact, besides writing, photography is one of my most consistent creative practices. I take photos every day. Lots of them. Some are of my work, my daughter, the stuff I see around me. Sometimes I take photos of signs or colors or flowers. Sometimes I photograph shadows, or street art or the way someone’s laundry hangs on the line outside in their garden on a sunny morning.

I love seeing photos. For impatient me, it’s a great way to instantly capture images and scenes; for forgetful me, it’s a reminder of places I’ve been and things I’ve seen. And for the storyteller in me, it’s absolutely magical what a single image can evoke.

But I would never call myself a photographer. Excuse me, I mean Photographer.

It’s a funny thing, labels. I have no problem saying I’m a writer. Is that because I’ve had pieces published? Is it that we meet a specific standard: Be publicly acknowledged (preferably more than once to prove it’s not a fluke)? Have a certain amount of equipment or education or the technical knowledge? A degree?

At what point do we lay claim to our creative labels? Do we always want to?

Some people don’t like labels, finding them too narrow or too definite or too much pressure. I think that’s why we often sidestep them entirely: “She’s an artist” becomes “she’s artistic”; “he’s a writer” becomes “he likes to write”. It’s softer, less definitive. It eases the pressure.

Our relationship with labels is an interesting one, especially in light of our creative journeys.

How do you label yourself, creatively or otherwise? Artist, photographer, crafter, painter, writer, cook, gardener? What about those other labels: Daughter, sister, mother, wife? Are these the joyful labels, the ones we wear proudly? How do we celebrate and own them?

Maybe it really is as simple as this: A photographer would be someone who takes photos. A writer is someone who writes. An artist is someone who creates art, according to her own definition of art.

What do you think?