Philosophical puke

>>3019685
in a way, your post reminds me of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G9QIIvSpzE

And to answer your question, I think you have a very narrow view of photography. There's so many ways to make money doing photography: Workshops, prints, salaried position, art fairs, portraits, weddings, sports, etc. And if someone else can do it, why not you? There are photographers out there that suck, but are making a living. Hell! I was out in La Jolla yesterday, there were 3 new photography galleries put in since the last time I visited, and Im not even kidding, I would be FUCKING EMBARASSED to even post the photos they had on instagram, let alone print it 5 feet tall in the front window of a high end art area. Someone else can do it, why not me?

As far as my downsides go, I make up too many excuses. My newest one is that I need to conserve my money, and driving around looking for photos to take would really siphon money fast

>>3019685
That's, like, an extremely artfaggy point of view.

"Nobody" cares about your special butterfly photographic vision unless you're good with bullshit sales pitches, yes. Of course, IF you are good at bullshit sales pitches to artfags on the consumer side, then I guess you have customers. There is a saddening amount of people who want to be inspired special butterflies.

However, if we're talking about some honestly earned money: Do you seriously think product photos are useless now? These are still strongly determining what price tag companies can put on a product.

Likewise for marriage and important event photos. Private and business customers exist for these. CV photos and so on also still are in demand. And a lot more.

youre a complete faggot, OP.

Photography serves the same purpose as speech and by extension writing - conveying information (of any kind, lots of room for useless arguments) to other members of our species or recording it for later use. Everything beyond this is conjecture and context-sensitive interpretation.

>>3019685
I make 2000$ a month from photography alone (in a second world country) and also an active artist with exhibitions and shit. Not trying to brag, but what's your point exactly? Just because you've failed to fulfill your own ambitions doesn't mean that everyone here did

>>3019685
>photography is all about making money
>hobbies are about being productive and not a waste of time

You are literally 13 years old.

>>3019685

I didn't read the whole post because too fucking long, but I got the gist of it.

I have made 140k-170k per year every year for the last 6 years doing photography.

This year I'm going to get out of doing it professionally.

Photography is as much a trade/skill as it is an art (inb4 photography isn't an art meme) I made all my money photographing for real estate, which has no artistic merit whatsoever but it's a photography career and it pays you A LOT.

I never looked at a photography career as an artistic career because that's moronic, when the average person hires a photographer they are hiring someone with a practiced skill to capture the result that they require no different to a plumber, electrician or builder, at least that's how I looked at it career wise and it paid off substantially.

>hurrdurr well why are you quitting? Pfppfpfp

How many of you have met the depressed ex photographer working in your local fucking camera store who basically hates photography? Ask any wedding photographer who has been doing it for 10 years about how much they love their job.

I acutually do love photography, but when you run a business and you're grinding daily, you have no other hobbies because you don't waste time that could be used growing your business etc then it drains you. People should think if that grind is something they want to do for the rest of their lives, because it's necessary.

I'm going to go get a comfortable government job, photography will still be my main hobby (probably taking shitty street photos) but I'll have time to focus on other things as well.

>>3019685

Everyone goes through it once in a while man. Judging by a lot of the defensiveness in this thread, some people are going through it right now.

Eventually, you make peace with the idea that you will probably never make anything of value, but rather give value to yourself by pursuing the process. It's not about the destination, it's about the trip, ya dig?

>>3019759
>Judging by a lot of the defensiveness in this thread, some people are going through it right now.
> Eventually, you make peace with the idea that you will probably never make anything of value
That's not what just about everyone else said. Read again.

>>3019685
I don't spend a lot($1000 overall) on my hobby and only shoot pictures for myself, I've never uploaded or scanned anything online. Every now and then I get asked to photograph something or someone because people I know, know I'm into it. If you do what you love because you love it the rest will work itself out.

I do photography more to train my eye for detail and to remember things than I do to get money or followers

There's things I like but I cant really put my finger on that I can really determine after looking over a photo for a while. And sometimes I'll go over my snaps and notice things I never noticed when taking the photo

This is my main approach but I also do photo because its cool to look for completely different features from what usually stand out to me

i do photography to kick others faggots asses.

i enjoy the whole process a lot, but the asskicking is a pretty cool bonus.

>>3019685
>Implying I do think I can ever get money out of this.

>most specifically, the fact that you're lying to yourself if you believe you'd still be doing this if you weren't able to share your work or receive some type of praise for your work

I can tell you that you're wrong, because I could share my work, but I choose not to. I take photographs for myself to look at and enjoy. I print those fuckers huge and put them in a drawer. When I feel like it, I take them out and enjoy them on my own.

>>3019685
>How do you deal with the fact that there are 50 million people just like you who want to make money from their art, of whom most are better than you, and that your work is not important whatsoever?

By doing it for myself and not trying to make a career out of it

Next question

OP, your whole argumentation is based on the concept of "value". You use this term without hesitation and thereby accept its immanent premise. But what is value? Value for who?
If you answer this question with something like 'for other people' then the question is immediately "for how many?" 1 Million? 1000? 10? How large must the group of people be that you say your work has value?
You maybe see that this is inconsequent way to define value. It cannot be simply quantity, since you don't even can define that quantity. So what else? What's left? Money? Is that the value you are talking about? How much money is enough that your work has value? $1 Million? $1000? $10? It's the same problem.

When you think about it you realize, that you cannot use a quantitative understanding for the value of art. Which makes sense, because it is rather a qualitative value per se.

You are an interacting part of this world. Contribution is every kind of process. If you deal with qualitative values, the only thing you can do (right) is to produce a quality as high as possible. That is it. That you give back to the environment. That is what you processed.
But: You cannot have expectations how the environment will process your output. This is not on you. It is solely on the environment. That's the deal. Nobody influences you how you process art, and therefore you cannot influence anybody how he or she processes your work.

You look out where the value of your work is? Search it in the quality you produce and not in the quantity of other's reactions.

>>3020253
Shoo shoo Schopenhauer!

>>3020189
>Implying I want to make money out of this

>>3019685
I've always had a surface level interest and enjoyment in taking pictures. I even had fun with what I could do with a point and shoot camera.

I got more "serious" when I was browsing the list of 4chan boards 5 years ago and found this one. It occured to me the depth of involvement and knowledge I could dive into so I started reading about cameras and composition and got my first DSLR around April 2012. It seemed like a good fit for a hobby and a wotlrthwhile way to spend time so I chose it as my next endeavor.

I got into the art stuff when I took some community college classes and it got kinda hairy when they were pressuring me to seek a degree and become more "artistic" as opposed to the clinical and straightforward way I approached it up to then. It did occur to me recently that my photos aren't the greatest thing ever and I felt like I was missing something for not being more recognized online or in galleries. But that was likely just a passing insecurity and not really "relevant" anymore. Art was never really why I got into the hobby and I don't even think of myself as an artist. Though, some day I might do more artistic stuff because why the hell not?

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>needing self help to take pictures

What is this?, Chicken Soup for the Photog Soul?

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>>3021167
I really, really like this image

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>>3021167

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