When does a serious amateur become a professional?
Hi all
I am registered as self-employed alongside my day job because I have earned a little bit of money from the sale or two of some landscape shots and I hope to make some more in the future. As a government employee, I have to register as s\e with an additional income, no matter how small.
I have devised price lists, set up accounts, gathered a sufficient range of kit to allow me to shoot in most conditions (appropriate lenses, good flash units, reflectors, spare bodies, etc) and also developed a kind of brand - basically, dog photography.
That said, I'm really just an amateur, a keen hobbyist, like many of us.
However, I'm getting to the point where I'd like to place a small local advert to advertise my services. What's worrying me though is that I turn up at a clients house one day and I can't do what a pro does, i.e. get good shots regardless of the conditions thrown at me. I get good shots when the conditions are right and when I have the time and direction to shoot what I want, how I want. But if I turn up at some family home and they say "Photograph the dog in the back garden and nowhere else today, in the rain" I might not be able to get what I consider to be satisfactory shots.
So I guess my questions to those of you who are pro or semi-pro is this...at what point did you venture from being just a serious amateur to someone who actually charges for your services? And how did you know you'd be able to pull it off the first few times you did it? I can keep buying kit till it comes out my ears but eventually I have to say "Ok - I'm ready to go".
Why not set up conditions for such shoots? It wouldn't be difficult to frame a paragraph or two that explains why, for best results, a certain situation that makes your work likely to be successful needs to be in place. I suspect the very notion that you are experienced enough to know about and insist on such conditions would be reassuring to a client. You're making photographs that work, not making gold from lead. You're the pro....explain what will assure likely success.
John is correct, a professional, in any field, controls the situation, even when the client thinks that they are.
Yes, but everyone flies by the seat of their pants at first. The secret is to enable the client to believe you are in full control, even when you are not. I remember a successful photog telling me about when she received her first regular engagement with a well-known Sunday colour supplement - she took what she believed to be the ONLY ten portraits of any worth she had ever taken and when engaged was terrified she would never be able to take a worthy portrait again. I think it's normal to feel that way, even when you have more under your belt. Perhaps it's normal, even productive, in creative fields always to have a certain amount of doubt or uncertainty.
As for when you become a 'professional' - I think 'professionalism' is a state of mind and doing - if you do a job and deliver the end-product in a professional way and to a professional standard, for money, you are a professional, even if you only do such a thing twice a month, or even a year, and even if you also earn money from other sources.
You just call yourself a "Photographer". There are good phtographers and there are bad photographers. There are good professional photographers and there are bad profesional photographers. Professional is just a label. It doesn't mean anything. Just because you are charging to do photography doesn't make you a professional photographer. Having a big flashy camera with flash and a few reflectors may make you look professional in the eyes of some clients but it doesn't make you a professional.
Being a professional is about your attitude to what you are doing and that means doing things properly, giving good service, charging a sensible rate, delivering good quality results, delivering what you have agreed to deliver, treating your clients respectfully, delivering on time, being reliable, not bullshitting your way out of producing crap work etc etc.
Anyone can call themselves professional. Actually living up to the label and gaining a reputation for having a professional approach to what you do is another matter.
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Yes, but everyone flies by the seat of their pants at first. The secret is to enable the client to believe you are in full control, even when you are not. .
Actually I'll qualify that slightly by saying that it's most likely for a someone to be more in control (of themselves, if not the situation) than they think they are. We really are our own worst enemies most of the time - except for the minority who think they know it all when they know very little. And also it should be a two-way street. Or even, arguably, one-way - the clients' way (or what the client wants, at least). I would add it's important to specialise and thus stay within your capabilities, but at the same time not to let lack of confidence be a barrier to trying something new if it comes your way. Honesty with the client can help (depending on kind of job - it may be something where someone with more experience would and should do better, for example I would never do a wedding for someone unknown to me, I hate weddings anyway) or it may be something you could have a good crack at without being unfair to the client - as long as you don't set yourself up as a god you won't have very far to fall.
I think there are two conditions you have to fulfill if you want to call yourself a pro photographer:
1) You have to earn money of shooting;
2) Earn enough money of shooting, in order to allow yourself not to shoot what you don’t find OK.
John and Dave are right about this second issue. You have to set the conditions for a good shoot or turn of your clients. Of course, don’t take it in an intransigent manner: there is something between these two extremes, called persuasion – and this is what brings you the pounds. How do you get there? Some knowledge (look what others did) and experience, plus communication skills. The narrow the field you choused, the faster you get to all of these.
But there’s something more than this: become an artist. To get there, there are other two conditions, independent of the above ones (IMO, of course):
a) Do something that moves much more people than those who pays you;
b) Do something others didn’t yet, or didn’t the way you do it (example: shoot copulating dogs).
While being a pro is not necessary to be an artist, and vice-versa, you should consider yourself blessed if you’ll become both of them.
When you agree to make a picture for somebody else,
you agree to illustrate their idea,
to fulfill their vision. To give them what they need.
Like ordering a meal at a restaurant,
the client deserves to know they will be served what they are ordering.
Our portfolio is our menu. The client expects their picture to look like the picture they see in your book.
Sometimes, what they See In a Magazine, or somebody elses book !
Being a PRO isn't really about being inspirational and shocking, it is about delivering the goods.
The most important part of the job is to understand what client wants.
If client wants a picture of their Newfie rescuing a drowning sailor from the sea,
you might ask them to clarify some details before you rent the scuba gear.
You know that a breeder or fancier has certain expectations from the picture,
and if you can deliver them, you will soon have to turn the work away. You have a very neat speciality,
and if you can give folks pictures that might have been made by the best in the business
but for better value and convenience, you'll do very well.
As far as control, if you're asked to photograph the dog in the rain,
sure as your born the owner will be angry at you for not making the sun shine.
YOU're the one who pushed the button. It is ALL your responsibility.
Ted, you have that greatest blessing of all for a commercial photographer: you have a "day job", so you can afford to say no.
Do the jobs you want, and refuse the ones you don't want. In a few years that will either give you no work at all; or it will give you so much work that you will have to decide which jobs to refuse. At that point you may call yourself a professional.
Ole
former part-time professional, but decided it was too much like work.
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-- Ole Tjugen, Luddite Elitist Norway
When does a serious amateur become a professional? 
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