PRO vs. Amateur

[Chiller]

Is there something wrong with being a hobbyist that can take good photos and who wants to post them for people to see?:er:

 

[John Thawley]

Is there something wrong with being a hobbyist that can take good photos and who wants to post them for people to see?:er:

Absolutely not! Photos are taken to be seen. And for the most part, all have value to someone... be it the author, the subject or any interested party.

And, I can offer you one sound rule that rarely comes into question, "content is king." When the content and the moment is right, it will always supersede the standard technical measures and bars.

 

[ANDS!]

What truly is silly is your inability to distinguish the difference between the White House Flickr stream and Mr. Souza's portfolio

Not really. I have, twice now, referred to the mans personal website, and his unedited picture dumps on Flickr. You folks keep repeating this line to somehow delineate between those who get it, and those who don't. And its a poor delineation - Souza's name is plastered over each and every one of those photostream photos. That may not be his "portfolio" that gets bandied around town when he's showing off "his best", but it is still representative of his body of work. It doesn't exist in some fantasy land where "Oh this shot doesn't count" - it is his work, and it is representative of his talent.

In all of this discussion it appears you've never looked at his portfolio

A shot of Obama with interns eating pizza, austounding!

Just to hammer home that we can, you know, dismiss this whole "Oh but you haven't seen his REAL work. . .thread over" nonsense.

You parachuted in somewhat out of context.

Funny that. A response from a random individual on a random message board thread. You offered up an example, I - casually I might add - offered my critique of said example. If you are blown away by his work, hell man - ride that horse into the sunset; whether on his unofficial photostream on the official White House Flickr page or on his personal page, none of the shots I see rise above AP journalist standard fare - which is relevant to the conversation as Souza was brought up as an example of some "photojournalist" able to create evokive works. /shrug

 

[Chiller]

Is there something wrong with being a hobbyist that can take good photos and who wants to post them for people to see?:er:

Absolutely not! Photos are taken to be seen. And for the most part, all have value to someone... be it the author, the subject or any interested party.

And, I can offer you one sound rule that rarely comes into question, "content is king." When the content and the moment is right, it will always supersede the standard technical measures and bars.

Thank you for the reply John. I was not intentionally going after you, so I hope you are not offended. It was more of a general question.

 

[manaheim]

Once you get into any definition which includes "to me", or includes something that people may or may not do, you get into highly subjective territory, religious wars, etc.

Professionals make money with their craft, amateurs do not. Period.

Wow this guy makes a lot of sense. You all should listen to him!

 

[Eco]

My 2 cents on the topic;

The pictures that I take and use in my company's marketing material lead to sales that lead to a nice income. I make money because my pictures sell people on my products.....am I a professional or just a lucky amateur? <IMO a lucky amateur>

The girls working at our local museum with the title of "photographer" taking tourist pictures all day long at the same focal length with the same controlled lighting---pro or button pusher? <IMO a button pusher>

The lucky guy with a P&S that sells some snatch shot of a famous person to the highest bidder, earns $$$$$ off a single photo---a pro just because he earns money from his work? <IMO a lucky guy>

The guy with a masters degree that can take any shot at any time of the day who owns pro gear...........but can't sell his services to safe his life---this one confuses me!

How about the guy who gets was born with the ability to take macro photos of butterfly's and sells 100's of prints for $$$$ a year but can't take any other photo to save his life----a pro?

How about the guy who earns $100,000 a year shooting weddings but earns ten times that acting in adult porns---can he be a pro at two things?

So.......do we create our own title as pro or do our peers do it for us?

 

[manaheim]

Again...

If you get paid, you are a professional.
If you do not, you are an amateur.

Anyone's SUBJECTIVE opinions of quality, skill, equipment use, etc. are all ENTIRELY unrelated.

One more time...

If you get paid, you are a professional.
If you do not, you are an amateur.

You might argue that if you are getting paid, but doing photography isn't really what you are getting paid for that you are an amateur, but that's pretty slippery slope. I would argue, if you're doing photography as a part of what your job, then you are a professional.

See, the biggest problem here is that people give a crap about the label. If no one cared, then this issue would be non-existant. The label is really meaningless, folks.

What you or someone else calls you has ZERO impact on the quality of your work, and the quality of your work has ZERO impact on what you or someone else calls you.

So, one more time... with feeling...

If you get paid, you are a professional.
If you do not, you are an amateur.

 

[usayit]

circles?

But you're in New Jersey. You have no experience making left turns!

Best comment yet...


If I had the resources of NHRA professional drag racers, I bet I could easily be the best one on the lot. All they do is point the car in a straight line and hit the gas pedal.

 

[ashleykaryl]

Putting everything in bold print or even adding comments to endorse your own previous statements like you did before a few posts back doesn't add a thing to the validity of what you are saying Manaheim.

I agree that from a legal/tax standpoint being paid makes you a professional i.e for tax purposes, but if I tried to get money from people now for doing their car repair work, even though I am utterly clueless about cars, it wouldn't make me a professional, merely a dangerous hack rip off artist with no skills or business integrity. The same applies to photography.

The word amateur comes from the Latin "amator" meaning to do something purely for love rather than profit and as far as I am concerned they can shoot their butterflies, landscapes or whatever all day long and put pretty pictures on their wall. It just bothers me when they think that are suddenly a professional simply because they have a business card printed and start touting for real work armed with nothing other than spin, bluster and a digital camera.

Over the last year or two I've run into a few individuals like this and they jump up and down about the customers they are dealing with but never seem to care in the slightest about their clear lack of knowledge. Surely Manaheim like myself, you and your clients would not consider these people to be professionals?

I first picked up an SLR aged 13, then spent 4 years studying photography at college before assisting various photographers in London. Then I cut my teeth in Milan as a professional photographer. Those years spent travelling around the city armed with two portfolio cases, going to labs, doing model castings, learning about retouching, lighting and how to deal with clients etc. are very much part and parcel of the experience that clients expect when they hire a professional.

N.B I am not trying to start a war here, this is purely a friendly discussion

 

[manaheim]

Putting everything in bold print or even adding comments to endorse your own previous statements like you did before a few posts back doesn't add a thing to the validity of what you are saying Manaheim.

No of course it doesn't, and if it wasn't obvious that my commenting on my own remarks wasn't intended as humor, then I need to go back to clown college.

I agree that from a legal/tax standpoint being paid makes you a professional i.e for tax purposes, but if I tried to get money from people now for doing their car repair work, even though I am utterly clueless about cars, it wouldn't make me a professional, merely a dangerous hack rip off artist with no skills or business integrity. The same applies to photography.

The word amateur comes from the Latin "amator" meaning to do something purely for love rather than profit and as far as I am concerned they can shoot their butterflies, landscapes or whatever all day long and put pretty pictures on their wall. It just bothers me when they think that are suddenly a professional simply because they have a business card printed and start touting for real work armed with nothing other than spin, bluster and a digital camera.

Over the last year or two I've run into a few individuals like this and they jump up and down about the customers they are dealing with but never seem to care in the slightest about their clear lack of knowledge. Surely Manaheim like myself, you and your clients would not consider these people to be professionals?

I first picked up an SLR aged 13, then spent 4 years studying photography at college before assisting various photographers in London. Then I cut my teeth in Milan as a professional photographer. Those years spent travelling around the city armed with two portfolio cases, going to labs, doing model castings, learning about retouching, lighting and how to deal with clients etc. are very much part and parcel of the experience that clients expect when they hire a professional.

N.B I am not trying to start a war here, this is purely a friendly discussion

Yeah this is the whole problem, though. While I understand your frustration (or anyone's) with this kind of person, it makes a determination about whether or not a person is XXX a subjective thing. Once something is subjective, it turns into these ridiculous 47 page long threads on whether or not people should be "allowed" to use this term when describing themselves.

What's more is that any one person's opinion on this is no more or less valid than anyone else's.

The same type of question comes up on things like "what is an artist?"... or even "what is an engineer?" (the latter of which blows my mind, but whatever...) The point is outside of a subjective definition, it unavoidably turns into one group of people pointing their fingers at another group of people and judging them worthy or not worthy, and that does no one any good because neither group has the rulebook, and if there are any rulebooks in play, they all say very different things.

What's MORE is that it creates a necessarily hurtful discussion. People feel judged, because they equate this label to some sort of determination on their ability, skills, or worthiness. (Which is also crazy, because who really cares what a bunch of yahoos on some public forum say about your worthiness, but I digress...)

But as usual, the subjective non-emotional answer to these kinds of questions gets largely ignored, because people's emotions flare up at the prospect of either THEIR "credibility as a professional" being diminished or them not being "good enough to be called a professional".

Thus, btw, why I bolded things because I thought MAYBE someone would stop to READ instead of just posting another rant about how this or that person who calls themselves a professional uses a D40 and a kit lens and takes fuzzy wedding pictures and how DARE they call themselves a professional.

Non-constructive, non-helpful.

It is, in fact, a big part of why TPF is such a horrific place to live as a "photographer/forum-goer" these days, and IMO this thread any any like it should be insta-locked.

Of course, that is also why I created my own forum elsewhere, but now I REALLY digress...

 

[PHILLIP MAC]

As a pro photographer I can be honest and say the amateur photographer is better and more knowledgable than an average pro, however what seperates the good pros from the good amateurs is the way we can adapt and work with clients to achieve a result acceptable to all parties involved. We are not artists we are there to supply a need, our art is done in our spare time. Choosing your subject and idea is easy now try to work on a set subject and layout given to you by a top advertising agency .

 

[Plato]

circles?

But you're in New Jersey. You have no experience making left turns!

Best comment yet...


If I had the resources of NHRA professional drag racers, I bet I could easily be the best one on the lot. All they do is point the car in a straight line and hit the gas pedal.

Think about all the readers that have never been in New Jersey and therefore have no clue regarding the significance of our exchange.

 

[Plato]

Is there something wrong with being a hobbyist that can take good photos and who wants to post them for people to see?:er:

Isn't that a violation of federal law?

 

[flipsy]

If you get paid, you are a professional.
If you do not, you are an amateur.

Flipsy agrees totally!

However, the so called lucky guy who is paid once or twice in his life, he is a sort of part time pro, or someone who had some pro moments in his life, but not a full time pro

 

[Plato]

However, the so called lucky guy who is paid once or twice in his life, he is a sort of part time pro, or someone who had some pro moments in his life, but not a full time pro

If there are part-time professionals and full-time professionals, are there also part-time amateurs and full-time amateurs?