The culture of photography has taken a noticeable turn ever since Instagram was made. There is a whole new category of photographers, and in my opinion, they are taking the profession by storm -- and not in a good way. It's extremely hard to explain and understand, because it's a good thing to have photography, or any artistry, take a significant turn, but this new social media turn will probably be everlasting, and it is quite alarming.

We are in a culture where the term, “wanna shoot?” can meet a lot of things. We need to make sure to separate the two major different categories of photography: Instagram photography and actual, professional photography. Instagram photographers are great,don’t get me wrong. I think so many are amazing, and Instagram is an awesome way to get your work out there for sure. Like I talked about in a previous article, I use Instagram as a business tool for my photography. I love Instagram; I think it is my favorite social media platform, but that's why it's so difficult to live with the false photographers on the app.

The false photographers are somewhat hard to identify right off the bat as they look like normal people, but it is their actions that define them. They are the ones that comment “wanna shoot?” on a selfie or direct message your profile to try and get together.

Now I get this quite frequently, and I always just delete the message or comments. However, out of curiosity, I actually replied to this guy who asked if I wanted to shoot because I wanted to see if he actually was a real photographer. He did have quite a lot of lingerie-looking models, and in the mix of it, he had a few photographs that were not of half-naked women, but of women who looked empowering -- and to be honest, they were pretty impressive. But, of course, having the notion that you cannot trust a lot of photographers who have half-naked women all over their profile, I had to check for myself. This guy disappointed me as I began to talk to him on Instagram direct messages. He hit on me before we even talked about photography. He was creepy, and I realized that this confirmed my conspiracy that these photographers weren’t really photographers, but people whose intentions were to try to get people through this profession. And yes, this is extremely smart to do. I understand why people do it, because of course people want to be admired by someone as well as update their Instagram with somewhat professional-looking pictures of them.

As I use Instagram for real photography purposes, I am quite offended when people ask me to take pictures of them with the intention that I am going to do something with them, or even when people joke around about “shooting." I have a love-hate relationship with photography for this reason. It saddens me that photography is going this way. If someone asks me to shoot them or shoot a show, I am going to shoot you and then I am going to leave right after I tell you it was great working with you and get my money. I'll send you the edited photos and be on my way. There is no such thing as a professional photographer sleeping with every person they shoot. You are not going to be taken seriously and it will permanently damage your brand and business.

I have been wanting to write about this for a long time now and it is something that really is close to me because I deal with it daily. I am a professional photographer, and I want people to take me seriously.