Define Success

[abraxas]

What will it take you make you a successful photographer? What are your terms? Where will it end?

 

[budskiphotography]

my views currently are making enough to keep busy, making enough to keep a room over my head, and making sure that Im happy doing it.

If I have all 3 of those then Im pretty sure it wouldnt end

 

[kundalini]

1) It's kinda like back in high school. I'd buy a pound and sell off enough so I could get the free smoke. Nowadays I'd rather be able to write off or have the (photo) gear pay for itself. Other than that..... have a few of the people I respect like my shots.

2) Thirty days same as cash.

3) It's [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3khTntOxX-k"]The Never Ending Story[/ame].

 

[abraxas]

I heard a definition the other day that impressed me;

"Success is whatever it is that you do that moves you closer to that which makes you happy."

Now, maybe that will change for me, but for now, I like that definition.

 

[JodieO]

Setting goals and fulfilling them.

My initial goal was to have a photography business that made six figures. Now that I have been there, done that, I want to pay off all my debt and then downsize.

So my next goal is almost going backwards by a business standpoint, but using the term above, it will bring me closer to what makes me happy (living life care-free but still having the money for fun...)

 

[skieur]

Success is enjoying what you are doing and being appropriately remunerated for it.

skieur

 

[Alleh Lindquist]

Real talent and something innovative about my style.

 

[Chiller]

Getting this damn dust spot off my sensor.

 

[JerryPH]

The constant attainment of more and more challenging goals is one definition of success for me. Success = happiness for me, so the more I succeed with my goals, big or small, the more pleasure I get.

A successful picture is one that I look at, touches me to the point that I smile, move on... have to come back... look again, and smile again. That is a successful picture.

For the pro or aspiring pro, I would *suppose* that it would have to invoke those same kinds of feelings in their clients as a partial definition of success... the other part would have to deal with being able to do that consistently and with all clients.

 

[DRoberts]

Success - When I get to the point that I am sastified with my accomplishments regardless of others opinions.

Abraxas: You seem to be getting very deep here lately. Are you on a self realization journey, or trying to get others to go there? Either way it provokes a thought proccess that might calm some people down on here. Appreciate the post.

 

[Battou]

Sucess, well I'm a rather simple minded person. My terms of sucess are merely not to fail. Then again, Just what is failure? How can one not succeed in something done to raise their spitits and maintain some happiness? How does one determine that they have faild? When dose one throw away their sword?

Abraxas: You seem to be getting very deep here lately. Are you on a self realization journey, or trying to get others to go there? Either way it provokes a thought proccess that might calm some people down on here. Appreciate the post.

Abraxas is very deep and he goes threw surges of posts like these every so often. Keeps on our toes and thinking about what it is we dedicate our lives to.

 

[jlykins]

Success for me is being recognized by my idols in photography, as a great innovative photographer. I have no intention of making this a full time business. Rather I plan to explore the limits of what a "great" photo is.

 

[Overread]

hmm the following are some of my objectives that I aim for - to achive them would be to achive success;

1) learn and understand the ins and outs of exposure so that I can define by choice what my sensor captures rather than by blind luck.

2) learn how to tack and find wildlife

3) put the two above together to get photos in the wild of the wild.

So far I think with regard to the macro world and insects I am far closer to my goal than with mammals where I am very much lacking in outdoors experience.

To be get recegnition for my efforts and work by others is also a desire that I have and I will not lie that the opinions of others to not affect the shape that my photography develops in - but at the end of the day part of this is learning the different capabilities of the camera by copycatting. Once you have copyied anothers art or style enough that you can mimik it then you can move on to anothers - at some point you will learn enough to forge your own form what you have learnt from others

 

[PatrickHMS]

My grandfather always told me to figgure out what I loved to do most, then go find a way to get paid to do it...

 

[matt-l]

Getting this damn dust spot off my sensor.

Right there!

same problem myself.

Success is whatever you make it, as long as your happy with what you do and you can pay the bills and feed the family. Do you want a job you hate to go to? If you can wake up 8:00 AM and have a job you enjoy to go to and hate to retire from, that is success.