Something just dawned on me about this board. This is just

Don't you mean "commercially"?

>>3111735

Whats the difference?

>>3111735
Not really sure. But this is my take on it. I have a friend who does wedding photos and shit like that and her pictures are fucking garbage. I'm a lot better than her and I don't make money.

I work at a photo lab. I'd love to make art that I could consider polished enough to 'sell'

>>3111729
I've been doing this professionally for over 20 years

>>3111729
Up to now, I have not done photography for pay.

Starting next month, I will start doing photography as a part-time side job.

I have been asked for prints of my nature and landscape photography, and my photos have been on many walls.

But I have never worked with people as subjects. I do not know how to direct a model. However, that is exactly what I am now being asked to do by a young actress (local commercials, mostly) and some of her friends. They will need somewhat frequent character sessions and head shots, not to mention simple setups for audition videos.

This will also expand into offering to do product photography and architectural photography for local businesses.

>wanting to destroy your hobby by trying to turn it into profit, instead of having a job that's easier and pays more, allowing you to dedicate yourself fully to photography in your own terms

>>3111739

It's a world of difference. "Professional" implies a certain degree of education, talent and qualification. Getting paid for your photography requires none of that.

"Commercial" photography is a much more accurate term. It reflects the workaday mercenary nature of what getting paid for your photos really entails.

>>3112143
>It's a world of difference. "Professional" implies a certain degree of education, talent and qualification. Getting paid for your photography requires none of that.
If you're going that route, then there's literally no such thing as a professional photographer and there probably will never be one.

Or if you back off your autism a bit and realize that profession has grown in meaning to simply refer to someone getting paid to do something versus volunteerism or amateurism, then you'll be able to have more meaningful conversations around the topic.

I plan to work in media, but not as a full-time photographer/videographer. You still need to learn the basics though and since I'm studying the field I want to work in, not the job, I need to teach myself and via books.

>>3112148

>If you're going that route, then there's literally no such thing as a professional photographer and there probably will never be one.

Guess who first introduced that argument on this board? ;)

and guess what, my man? Language counts. Specificity with your language helps you have more meaningful conversations, not less. Aspriring photographers often use "professional" to refer to any kind of high level photography, when in reality there is commercial photography, fine art photography, and journalistic photography. All three have very separate requirements and codes of ethics, qualifications, measures of success, etc. By being more specific than relying on a vernacular meaning, we can help educate and also discuss our common passion on a much more articulate level.

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Doing it professionally sounds bad to me.

Either you have to pander to your clients and do work that you personally don't care for or you become an artist and do your own thing and struggle unless you get lucky and your work becomes popular.

But being an amateur isn't satisfying as well because you can't dedicate much time and you don't get any VIP access that professional photographers get.

working with photography for about 5 years now... photojournalism to nightclub because moneyyy

>>3112155
>Guess who first introduced that argument on this board? ;)
Someone who was here well before you.

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I do it professionally. I show 4-6 times a year, sell work, and have gallery representation. It doesn't pay the bills but it doesn't have to. For money I'm an assistant teacher in the middle school room in a level 3 facility for violent children.

I've done it professionally. It ruined the joy of taking photographs and I gave up for several years

Now I do what I want and don't listen to know-it-all twats. Sometimes I still make money from it

>>3111729
>wanting to take pics of lardasses getting married and babies smearing shit all over their face
what in the fuck for

>>3112206

it was me, my man. Sorry to disappoint.

I work at a major tourist attraction taking "portraits" of human monsters and then trying to sell them to them. Sometimes a boring asshole will decide to propose to his vapid girlfriend, and I'll get to shoot the proposal and a little engagement photo shoot. Technically, photography is in my job title, but I can't call myself a professional photographer.

I work as a photographer for a minor league's football team (not that football that's a pussies' way to play rugby). For my job I use a digital camera, when I make it just for pleasure I use film.

"Professional Photographer" is just a marketing term to get cucks to buy into gearfaggotry

FACT: I never met a "professional photographer"
that was actually good and not just some pixel peeping, bokeh whore.

>>3112313
Are you hired by Disneyland or whereever or do you just show up at various tourist spots taking pictures and asking for money?

>>3112143
>>3112155
Sorry m8, but you’re an idiot. Professional means it’s your profession - you do it for a living and get paid for it. Some idiot kid with an iPhone with no concept of the fundamentals of photography could take the worst photos in the world but if he makes a living from it he’s a professional. You could be the greatest, most accomplished photographer of your age but if you don’t make money from it you’re an amateur. The idea that these terms have any direct correlation with quality is a fiction perpetuated by aspies like you.

In fact your definition is doubly-wrong: ‘commercial’ is a specific branch of photography (not necessarily even paid) where the product is for directly commercial means. So if you are paid for photography which does not facilitate the buying or selling of products or services, you’re professional but not commercial.

I'm a software consultant and ever since I started I've felt a terrible suffocation by my job and the people around me, but it pays so well I keep doing it and take pictures and make video games in my free time. I want to make movies some day.

>>3113178

can't believe you typed all that out when your argument was literally just "NO URE RONG" with no thought to back it up. feel bad for you son.

>>3111729
For me going pro, and making it a job would suck all the fun out of it. I have been shooting for fun before most of you were born.

>>3113178
Photography is not a profession. Professions have standards for admission, they're self-regulated by professional associations, they require extensive specialized education, and they have codes of conduct and ethics. Medicine or law or engineering or accounting are professions. Anybody can pick up a camera and instantly become a photographer, you don't need a license to take pictures or even to charge people to take pictures for them.

I'm not autistic enough to have a problem with people calling themselves professional photographers or whatever, but understand that there's a difference between how everyone calls themselves "professionals" and what the word "profession" really means.

I used to be a full-time magazine shooter. It was fun while it lasted, lots of travel, big budgets, plentiful work, and decent pay. That all went to hell when the magazine industry collapsed, and the blogs that replaced print magazines have shit for budget and all just license photos from some local guy instead of flying their own shooters out. I ended up becoming an in-house shooter for a company, and from there I moved out of professional photography entirely. (I'm starting a new job soon and I'll shoot some stuff for the website/social media occasionally, but that's only a small fraction of my work.)