Can a professional photographer be also a good sniper in the battle field?
Friday, July 30th, 2010 at
2:24 am
I wanted to know your opinion about these question, considering the photographer’s life behind the viewfinder and his capabilities with the scope of a rifle. Will the photographer still need training or can he use his skills in photography in focusing on subjects.
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Everyone can speak of this when they have no experience in shooting either an animal or a man. Cameras done make people bleed, and others who are taking pictures of you are not shooting at you to kill you.
Just because someone is good at target shooting does not mean that he, or she, can kill someone even if it is a last resort. A large percentage of people who are killed are killed with their own guns because they can’t shoot someone.
I am a target shooter and a hunter and I have been in a war. It is my opinion today that of all the people who are carrying pistols, few will be able to use it when the chips are down. Virtually every sniper that I know is emotionally flat and most are psychologically screwed up. It ain’t that easy.
photography will make you observant and more aware of your surroundings but there is a big difference between pressing the button to taking an image and pulling the trigger to killing some one!!
You may not need training as some children in African tribes shoot AK47s but you would need practise like with a camera to get good with the equipment.
…… are you 9?
It takes 5 mins learn to use a camera, its takes years to train to become a solider, and more years on top of that to become a sniper.
Takes more than that to be an effective sniper, however a nature photographer (or perhaps a paparazzo) would probably excel because they tend to work with larger zoom lenses and are usually very familiar with the art of patience and holding the same position for freakishly long lengths of time.
Any other photographer isn’t going to be that much different from anyone else coming into it. They’ll probably have an edge on experience with finding and following moving targets via the viewfinder, but that’s about all.
wow i never though about this lol
"i took your picture and now i will take your life"
It depends on what kind of camera you use. Digital photographers are sub-machine gunners; a film SLR with a 50 or 55mm lens is a side arm; 35mm range-finder users are the secret agents with special issue pistols; anyone with a wide-angle lens just loves to blow things to hell, and would be using a grenade launcher or something alike; large format shooters are field technicians and take their time plotting their attack; of course anything over 200mm is a sniper rifle, and their deployment is dependant on the camera body.
You know, I’ve had similar thoughts about things like this – but with crane operators and skill tester machines.
I doubt you could add "good co-ordination with target-like objects" in your resume, but i suppose it would help doing the training. I guess the others are right though – it would take years to train to be a soldier (and they probably wouldn’t want to take photos after that experience, in any case – it would put a whole new meaning on "shooting" people).
This is one of the strangest questions I have seen yet.
"Long ago in a land far, far away," as the story goes, I was a sniper and now I am a photographer. I can think of talents that I have that apply to both, but, in the context of your question, the answer is no. They are very different skills sets and being a photographer will cut your training time down by about an hour.
To think that acquiring and reliably eliminating a target under a wide range of environmental conditions is at all similar to taking photographs because you are looking through a lens is like thinking flying squirrels are similar to birds. Beyond understanding the basics Ace mentioned of getting a steady platform for shooting either photographic subjects or targets with a weapon, the two skills don’t usefully overlap.
The exception might be for nature photographers who have to have patience, know how to not disturb the environment and understand how their subjects behave.
Still a weird question.
Vance
Oddly enough you may be right. I have been a professional photographer for many years and tried out clay pigeon shooting for the first time last week. I know that is very different from being a sniper, but I hit the first clay and had a 50% success rate overall which the Instructor said was quite impressive for someone who didn’t know one end of a gun from the other!
You are right as far as guessing that the same skills used for shooting cameras with long lenses, hand held are nearly identical to those used when shooting long rifles at long distances. Brace, breathe and caress the trigger (shutter release).
That is where the similarity ends. Unless one is trained in killing enemy soldiers without recrimination, the first time the "photographer cum sniper" places a round through the tango’s head or chest, that will be the end of their "short" military career.