Q: Misa, since when did photographers start being treated like machines?
A: Since the subject became the star and the creator became invisible.
Since filters replaced vision and “content” replaced craft.
Everyone with a phone became a “photographer,” and everyone forgot what creation means.
I don’t press buttons, I build truth.
And I’m done apologizing for that.
Since when did the photographer become the servant of the subject?
Since when did the person in the frame become more important than the one who creates it?
I’ll tell you when,when the phone replaced the craft.
When “taking a picture” became the same as making one.
When everyone with a camera thought they became a photographer, and every agency started treating creators like delivery boys for vanity.
The Photographer Is Not a Machine
We are not image vendors.
We don’t “capture content.”
We create structure, emotion, timing, the invisible architecture of presence.
The camera doesn’t do that. The photographer does.
But in this new world of “social representation,” everyone thinks art is free and exposure is payment.
They forget that a photograph is a negotiation between vision and truth, not between budget and brand.
The Subject Is Not the Author
I respect every person who stands in front of my lens.
But let’s be clear, if you didn’t build the light, frame the silence, and hold the tension between two seconds,
you are not the author.
You are part of the story, not the storyteller.
The image exists because someone knew where to stand, when to wait, and when to click.
That moment, that fraction of eternity, doesn’t belong to the one being looked at, but to the one who dares to look differently.
The Age of the Self-Centered Subject
Now, agencies tell their “talents” to charge photographers for photographing them.
Imagine the absurdity:
a creator invests time, equipment, production, editing, rights management and the subject, guided by a pseudo-agent, wants to be paid to be part of an artistic work.
It’s the perfect image of our era:
everyone wants the glory of the gaze, but nobody respects the one holding the camera.
A Photographer Is a Creator, Not a Supplier
I don’t produce deliverables.
I build visions.
I work for meaning, not marketing.
And if that doesn’t fit the new economy of superficiality, good.
The day a photographer starts taking orders like a machine is the day art dies.
And I’m not here to help bury it.
Final Thought
So, to all the agencies who treat culture like content and artists like freelancers of emotion, stop confusing profession with servitude.
And to all the new “influencers” who think participation deserves a fee, remember: being looked at doesn’t make you valuable.
Being seen does.
And that only happens when someone still knows how to create.
MISA
