Artist: Top Level 7(equivalent to "Heaven" in Christian mythology)
This is the highest level.
An artist fixes his imagination in a tangible form called a photograph. He captures the spirit of place, real or imagined, in this photograph and the viewer responds to this.
An artist is a complete master of his tools. When creating art an artist transcends common existence as his spirit flies up to meet that which he is capturing. He may practice and learn his tools while he is not creating, however when creating the camera becomes an extension of his mind. No conscious thought is expended on the technical issues with which he is a virtuoso while creating photographs.
To make a musical analogy, a musician may woodshed his scales, but when he's jamming he's not even thinking about fingerings. He's lost in the passion of the moment.
Just like professional surfers who have a dozen boards or pro guitarists who have 23 axes, an artist may have a slew of cameras, each for a different purpose.
Likewise, other artists may only have one camera, or none at all. It just doesn't matter.
Artists sometimes dress funny and tend to stay up late.
No one ever sees their work since they have crummy ability to promote themselves. Those that do drop down to Whore, which sadly and paradoxically means you will never see the work of a true artist unless you know one personally. Good artists are usually too embarrassed to show their work to anyone unless you are intimate with them, since their work is their soul.
Artists use any sort of camera, including pinholes and disposables, or 8 x 10s. They use whatever instrument they need to create what they want.

Whore: Level 6
A whore is an artist who sells his soul by accepting money or drugs for his art.
By lowering himself to this level his vision is probably compromised.
Why? Because when one depends on selling one's soul to pay for one's food and pad one does not screw with the program, which means that one does not try new styles.
If a whore's work pays his bills after years of trying, it's unlikely any whore will be open to trying new styles while he still needs the dough.
Artists with representation (meaning they are represented by a gallery or other rep; same thing as pimps) may loose their representation they change their style.
Therefore, art for sale from one person rarely gets better or different.
The style that sells is all a whore's johns and pimps (representatives) want to see. See Barnbaum's book on artistry. It is extraordinarily difficult for a successful whore to change styles once one has been accepted.

Amateur: Level 5
People who earn less than half of their income from photography are amateurs. This has nothing to do with the quality of their photography.
This person loves to create photographs. Good amateurs of pure spirit can transcend the other levels directly to being an artist.
People who shoot weddings and etc. on weekends as a side line from their day jobs are still amateurs; they just charge for their photos.
Amateurs who think that better cameras will improve their photos are at risk of descending to the lowest level of equipment measurbator. Too many amateurs have been misled by camera makers into thinking that they need good cameras for good images. This thought is poison to creating art.
Amateurs who loose themselves in creating great images are set for a path of enlightenment.
Being an amateur is a good thing; from this level one can rise to the level of artist rather easily.
Amateurs almost always shoot Canon SLRs.

Snapshooter: Level 4
This is my mom and most people. These people want memories, as opposed to photographs or cameras.
Snapshooters who are graphic artists or otherwise visually literate people often make fantastic images that impress everyone. These snapshooters are artists and don't even realize it. They usually dress better than the artists who think they really are artists.
Believe it: it's the photographer who makes an image, not a camera.
Snapshooters use point-and-shoot and disposable cameras, which give the same excellent results as the Leicas, Nikons, Canons and Contaxes used by everyone else.

Professional: Level 3
A professional photographer is a person who earns his entire living (100%) from photography.
Professionals do not create art for a living; they create images for commerce. They usually have some familiarity with the tools and can get out decent images, however the ability to capture imagination may or may not be something they can do.
Of course professionals may create great images on their own time.
Professionals spend very little time worrying about cameras, except when they need to get them repaired. They spend most of their time looking for work and pissing about how all the other photographers in town are dropping their prices.
Professionals spend more on film and lab fees each month than they spend on camera gear in a year.
There are no professional nature photographers. They all either have day jobs or make their wives support them.
Professionals shoot Nikon SLRs, Mamiya medium format and Calumet 4x5" cameras. They cannot afford gear as good as most serious amateurs.
Unless you are a commercial photography buyer or know one as a freind you have not heard of professional photographers. The ones you may have seen in camera ads proclaiming that they use this or that camera are just spokesmodels.
Professionals don't have websites and don't put out technical newsletters. Those people are usually amateurs.

Rich Amateur: Level 2
These are amateurs who, by having too much money, buy lots of equipment which can fetter their freedom of expression. They are mostly men, and many are old or retired.
Rich amateurs shoot Leicas, Contaxes, Alpas, Hasselblads and Linhof 4x5s. These are great cameras, but the results are the same as the Zenits, Pentaxes, Bronicas and Tachiharas.
The poorer rich amateurs shoot Nikon or even Canon SLRs.
Lately these idiots are getting digital SLRs designed for newspapers like the Canon EOS-1D or Nikon D1X, which give technically poorer results than the cameras used by snapshooters. The really stupid people have waited for the $7,000 Contax N Digital, which is a less useful camera than the Nikon or Canon digital SLRs, and still makes technically poorer images than a cheap film SLR.
The bad rich amateurs think fuzzy B/W images of poor people are art.
Some rich amateurs fall into the bottom spiritual level easily because they worry too much about equipment, others go straight on to create great art since they don't have any worries about equipment since they think they own the best. Oddly, few rich amateurs produce ordinary work. It either rules or sucks.

Equipment Measurbator: Bottom Level 1 (equivalent to "Hell" in Christian mythology)
These men (and they are all men) have no interest in art or photography because they have no souls. Lacking souls they cannot express imagination or feeling, which is why their images, if they ever bother to make any, suck.
Most seem to come from technical avocations, like engineering, computers and sciences. These people worry so much about trying to put numerical ratings on things that they are completely oblivious to the fact that cameras or test charts have nothing to do with the spirit of the final image. Because they worry so much about measuring camera performance we have dubbed them "Measurbators." Unfortunately, many of them wander into KenRockwell.com looking for information on camera performance.
Many of them also play with audio equipment, computers or automobiles. They enjoy the toys just like their cameras for their own sake, but rarely if ever actually use them for the intended purposes.
Younger ones play video games or engage in chat rooms and web surfing. Older ones join "camera" clubs. (You should join photography clubs, but never camera clubs or any clubs that try to score art, since art is entirely subjective and cannot be scored numerically.) Likewise, these people never create anything notable with any of this other gear either, but they sure get excited by just having, getting or talking to you about it.
The one type of gear these people ignore is the only type of gear that actually helps: lighting.
They are interested solely in equipment for its own sake. They will talk your ear off for hours if you let them, but as soon as you ask to see their portfolio their bravado scurries away, or they think you want to see their cameras or stocks.
Someone with a decent portfolio is not an equipment measurbator. Someone with more cameras than decent photos just may be. People with websites teeming with technical articles but few interesting photographs probably are.
Do not under any circumstances deal with these people, talk to them or read their websites. To the innocent they seem like fonts of knowledge, however their sick, lifeless souls would love to drag you into their own personal Hells and have your spirit forever mired in worrying about how sharp your lens is. If you start worrying about this and you'll never photograph anything again except brick walls and test charts.
These people are easy to identify. If you've read this far you've probably seen their websites. They always have lots of info about equipment, but very few real photographs. Beware of any information from any website not loaded with photography you admire.
I had to pull most of the photos of equipment off my site because these people were spending more time looking at my equipment than my art！ The bandwidth for which I pay was being eaten up by these idiots looking at my lenses, instead of looking at the photos in my gallery which is the whole point of this site. That's why all the stupid pages like this one are in yellow, so that their eyes hurt too much to waste too much time on the nuts and bolts.