I use it for lots of things that aren’t photography, scanning QR codes, AR uses like seeing how a piece of furniture will look in my house, identifying stars.

in every one of those the camera is used for photography though

How is scanning a QR code photography? Photography is "writing with light"; the key property is that of making a lasting record of a transient handful of photons. When scanning a QR code, the imaging is incidental, but more importantly no record of the "light" is made. If scanning a QR code is photography, so is sitting on the porch reading a book...

You can't scan a QR code without photography. But the QR code app won't just write "oh we need the camera to capture some photons".

By what definition of photography is this true?

Is photometry photography now? Is the barcode reader at my supermarket performing photography? The encoder on my scroll wheel? My solar roof?

Cameras can be used for many things other than photography. Many other things than cameras can be used for photography. The two are not synonymous.

If it is a camera then all it does is photography. If you call it a camera in your encoder and solar roof then yes sure.

You are trying to bend definitions

> Cameras can be used for many things other than photography

Like plug a hole with it or hammer a nail?

Like photometry, and spectroscopy, and videography, and camera obscura, and a hundred other things. A camera is a tool for redirecting photons to create an image of a scene on a 2D plane. So many more things than just creating durable images by recording the spatial distribution of light on a plane (photography) are possible with such a tool.

> A camera is a tool for redirecting photons to create an image of a scene on a 2D plane.

This is photography. You are thinking about art but photography also means technical process.