Hello good people of the English stackexachange,
Non-native English speaker here. I'm looking for a category name for people that use cameras (photo or video), drones, different kind of equipment, to take photos, make movies, or VR or 360° experiences. These include both amateur and professionals.
Photographer (Merriam-Webster: a person who takes photographs especially as a job) or a moviemaker (Merriam-Webster: a person who makes movies) are specific only to a subset of the category I'm looking for.
I have considered:
- media creators. According to Wikipedia: Media (the singular form of which is medium) is the collective communication outlets or tools that are used to store and deliver information or data. It is either associated with communication media, or the specialized mass media communication businesses such as: print media and the press, photography, advertising, cinema, broadcasting (radio and television) and publishing. However, the media term is much more broad than what I'm looking for.
- new media creators. Again, Wikipedia: Common examples of new media include websites such as online newspapers, blogs, or wikis, video games, and social media. Same problem as with media.
- makers. According to Merriam-Webster: a person who makes something; a company that makes a specified product. However, in the context of the maker culture: The maker culture is a contemporary culture or subculture representing a technology-based extension of DIY culture (Wikipedia), this seems to be misleading.
Bonus question: what would be the name of the category if it would also include music makers?
Thanks for your help!
Best Answer
The informal lensman (American-English, Oxford Dictionary):
(A professional photographer or cameraman.)
Otherwise there is no formal alternative; you'll just have to combine:
Photographer+Videographer
Compound a new word: photovideographer or photo-video-grapher or (photo/video)grapher
If we google some of these options:
(note, 'photo' should go before 'video' because a video photographer is actually still just a videographer.)
You could use cinematographer but a cinematographer doesn't physically operate the cameras, he directs others to do that.
You also wanted an option for all of that + audio; for that you could use multimedia producer or multimedia creator, although videography can encapsulate post-production audio editing as well.