Should I become a professional photographer?

The difference between a pro and an amateur, beyond getting paid a living wage for photography, is the ability to take good pictures regardless of circumstance. I've had portrait situations where my time with the subject is limited to under a minute. I know people who've photographed Obama in a portrait situation, and they get about 15 seconds with the man. You need to be able to take usable pictures quickly, regardless of equipment failure or other circumstances, and then also deliver those pictures in a usable and professional and reasonably swift manner. This doesn't mean handing over a cd of 1500 pictures, or even just handing over a cd of 120 pictures (one portrait and 3 artwork pictures for each of the 30). Think of professional photography as like being a stand up comedian. Just as anyone can tell funny jokes when everyone's having a good time, so to can everyone take a decent enough picture when people are smiley and well-lit at a late afternoon picnic. It takes experience and practice (and a little talent...but mostly experience and practice) to be able to do it on command, regardless of circumstance (bad lighting, bad mood for you or your subjects, bad equipment, a subject that you aren't interested in at all, etc.), and deliver the product. And this doesn't even cover all the legal hoops you've got to jump through. The end usage sounds like it isn't editorial, so you've got to familiarize yourself with model and property releases. You've got to get them signed and deliver copies to the client. You've also got to make sure you've got a decent contract for the whole thing, and a reasonable bid. The contract will cover the terms of the shoot and the licensing terms for usage of the photos. If you bid too low, you're never going to get hired by that client for anything more than that lowball and you've lost money on the job. You probably need insurance, too, in case a lightstand falls on somebody or you accidentally break one of the sculptures when you're trying to get a good angle. Oh, and before you ask, don't even think about not getting paid for this. Doing it "for exposure" or "to fill out your portfolio" is not proper compensation. You're providing a service, and just like any other vendor, your costs should be covered and you should make a profit.

A suggestion. Try photojournalism on a micro scale. It's not so hard to try, if you don't mind getting paid in Monopoly money. And it is, in my opinion, a lot of fun. An excellent way to learn about photography. Go to your local newspaper. I mean the littlest one you can find. (The best newspapers have one publisher, one editor, and one reporter.) Offer to take pictures at some town event -- a parade, maybe a town fair. Or better yet, offer to take pictures at some minor event the paper feels obligated to cover. Senior centers and elementary schools should be good for this. Think 'senior proms' with the the emphasis on "senior," career fairs, art classes, science fairs. Pitch a few events to the editor. Tell them if they like the pictures, they can pay you their regular freelance photographer rate, and if you like each other you can keep coming back and working for them. Newspapers often expect people to "audition" for their jobs, but they do pay you if they print your work. I'm essentializing, but here are the rules: You'll get a few obligatory shots of the mayor or the principal standing with her arm around the event organizer: take four photos; as long as they're positioned well and they're in focus, they're usable. That's one shot out of an eight- to ten- shot photo essay -- if you're lucky. But at these events most of your focus should be on cute pictures of things like: • Firefighters dressed up with little kids playing with the adults' uniforms • Old ladies dancing with much younger folks • Eight-year-olds marching in step while playing the clarinet or twirling batons • Anyone getting his or her face painted You get the idea. Those photos should look candid. Remember to get a parent's or school's permission before photographing any children at school events. Never offer to photograph a school play, unless you photograph the kids getting their makeup done backstage in advance and get some time on stage with the kids before people show up and the show starts. Ideally, you should spend no more than an hour and a half getting your photos, but on your first time out of the gate expect to double that time and arrive early. (At really minor events down the road, you needn't spend more than twenty minutes taking photos.) You don't need a high-powered camera for this stuff: you just want clear, illustrative images. Remember to take as many left-facing photos as right-facing photos in both your horizontal and vertical shots. Never take a shot with more than three people in it. Get names, ages, school grades or professional titles from everyone you photograph. The key is that you need to reliably get twenty sets of scenes, with detailed notes for each, and do it all very quickly. You can get a lot of experience at these kinds of events, thinking of your photographs as a story. At the end of the day (or hour, as it may be), you should have at least eight usable shots. Offer them up for a small fee/audition -- whatever the paper regularly pays a photographer (Think small. Really small. Fifty bucks for a full essay, tops). They may pay you ten bucks for going out on the assignment if they only end up printing one photo. I once had a nightmarish photographer submitting photos to me at a local newspaper where I was an editor. He was famously disorganized, and would send me thirty photos of each event. Needless to say, I didn't use him much. You shouldn't send more than ten photos unless you've specifically been asked for them. And you should clearly label each picture. And you should have great notes with exact spellings of all names, details in the correct format, every time. Indeed, if you're really interested you should try writing captions for each photo. (That's a whole separate art/science.) Anyway, this is a very good way to investigate attempting professional photography without the stakes being too high. You can see if you can get the tempo down, if you can reliably take photos with the right tone for the occasion, and if you don't like it, you can easily quit any time. It will only take one assignment to see what you would need to learn if you were to attempt getting into any kind of professional photography. And did I mention that it was fun? And, it's a service to the community. Even with newspapers shutting down left and right, community paper clippings still end up on refrigerator doors.

Not to pile on, but I have to agree with mostly everyone else. The fact that you spent your first few paragraphs talking strictly about what gear you have leads me to believe that, like lots of people, you think the secret to taking pro-level photos is having pro-level equipment. Don't be lots of people. I must respectfully disagree with brina. First of all, most newspapers, even the smaller ones, already have a long list of reliable freelancers they can go to for those types of assignments. If you wanted to go to a fair on your own time, with your own money, to gain more experience in photojournalism and wanted a critique on the photos you took, I would applaud you. If you had no experience, wanted to literally learn on the job AND get published the next day AND get paid, I would tell you to get more experience and come back to me later. Only a publication that truly does not care about the quality of the photos would go for that. One way I would learn is by going out on assignments with my father. I learned by watching him and taking my own photos, but the pressure wasn't on my inexperienced shoulders to deliver. It's all harder than you think. Yes, even the local fair.

. . . a recent outing saw me take around one and a half thousand photos. I considered no more than 10 to be really good photos. Pick an interesting subject and shoot twenty different pictures of it. If four of them are good, congratulations, you've got what it takes. If you get one good one, that's luck. Digital cameras and the machine gun approach allow anyone to amass a collection of interesting images. I don't mean to disparage you or your interest in the field, but 10 photos out of 1,500 says to me that your "success" is due to chance. The ability to frame a shot and get reproducible results time after time is what makes a professional photographer.

I'm just a hobbyist, so what do I know? Still, I've read lots on the topic. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/go-pro.htm How to Become a Professional Photographer also http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/pro-not.htm for starters. I think there's a world of difference between shooting kiddie photos for Sears or graduation photos for the local college, and shooting for art or magazines or websites or even for catalogs. And yet all of those can be considered "professional" by someone. Decide what you want to do, figure out if you can make money at it. Probably it's gonna involve a ridiculous amount of effort and hard work. Probably it's gonna result in little to no income at all. Frankly, from what I can see, you're probably better off keeping it a hobby. The general consensus I've seen from most people is that if you're looking to make money, this is the worst possible route to take. Photography tends to COST money, not EARN it. Not without years of effort&luck behind you already.

No offense, but you could put a blind fold on and take 1500 pictures and get 10 good ones. Work on developing your eye more and try to assist other photographers.

Thank you everyone, there's a heap of really good advice on this page. Looks like my best option is to just keep taking photos when I'm out and about and leave the paid jobs to the professionals.

You've taken some nice pictures, but if you roll up with your Olympus, you will rightly get laughed out of town. You can get perfectly nice small prints out of almost any compact camera, but it just won't fly for catalogue work, where you'll need images at a much higher res. If you think about it, they'll be printed at 300 dpi, and you'll probably want them printable at A4, so the images will need to be 2480 X 3508, which is something like 9 megapixels. Yours tops out at 7.1 megapixels. You need better equipment to shoot that sort of thing. You'll also need to know about lighting, as photographing artwork is much harder than people think. Without your brain to compensate for varying light conditions and colour temperature, a camera will produce pictures that are way off the mark. Taking formal portraits will likely require artificial light as well, as well as practise directing people and knowing when you're got The Shot. I'd recommend saving up for a DSLR if you're genuinely interested. You'll find the quality of your images will take a leap ahead simply by virtue of the larger sensor and higher quality lenses. Definitely get a job assisting a local photographer - there's probably no better way to advance your knowledge. Don't be put off - I think some people are skim-reading your post and assuming incorrect things. Good luck, and feel free to Mefi Mail me if you've got any questions - I'm definitely happy to help.

Being a professional photographer isn't all about the type of camera you own. It is a business and you have to be just as versed in running a business as taking pictures. That means knowing how not to get screwed by taxes to bookkeeping, pricing, invoicing, advertising, and maintaining business relationships. If you know nothing about that then you will most likely fail. It is a lot of work. Don't invest in equipment now, whatever you do. Invest in some business classes. When and if you decide to try your hand as a pro then set up your business and then buy equipment which you can write off.