Pros, how did you get to where you are today?

[im_trying11]

i am very curious. what did you do to pursue your photography careers. Did you go to school after high school? are you happy you did what you did

 

[Flash Harry]

Hobbyist, redundancy, college, in that order. H

 

[JerryPH]

I'm not a professional, I just play one on TV... but I will tell you this... there is WAY MORE to professional photography than pressing a button. If you look around and talk to pros in the field and see how they are doing, you will see that the ones making a good living are good to very good photographers, but are incredible business people.

Having good business skills is MORE important in running a photography BUSINESS than it is pressing that shutter. For you, the best place to get that info is represented by a degree in business.

My suggestion is to stay in school and get a real degree. This will take your photography places that 99% of the supreme top notch photographers can never go.

Look at Ansel Adams, one of the best photographers in the world... was pretty much penniless his whole life.

 

[bigtwinky]

Awesome advice Jerry!

 

[KhronoS]

I advise you the same as Jerry. It's always a great idea to have a back up plan in case something goes wrong.

I see your asking about photography school. Beside technical parts and receive critics from a pro you can't learn to much. You should really go to college and go to some photography courses for example in your spare time. see what works best for you but do give up college for photography... i love photography that much that i really don't want to turn it in a full time job. At least that's what i feel. It's all about having fun, trying to put some food on your table in hard times is not that fun

Photography asks from you a lot of ambition and practice.

 

[McQueen278]

by using the search function on the forum.

 

[PatrickHMS]

by using the search function on the forum.

..or you can bookmark it.

 

[manaheim]

Mostly via networking. I had to network into a place where I get my relatively high-paying, low-emotion jobs.

I agree on the business aspect of it. I think a lot of would-be photographers get into the romantic notions of taking stunning artwork and making their fortune that way. My guess is that's just like anything artistic... you have to have a lot of timing and luck to go along with that talent to make it big this way... and odds are you might even be able to leave the talent behind.

For my business plan, I chose a space that lacked emotion and had only a very small amount of "art" to it... I wanted relatively high dollars and relatively low stress. My clients are generally quite happy as long as I get an accurate quality capture, and far less concerned with how artistic or beautiful the capture is. I still get to try for those really neat shots, but there's only so much you can do with some plain brick office building...

And again, that gets back into networking. I knew someone at my client and I worked on them pretty hard for about a year just to get a shot at doing work for them. After that, I had to pursue them a bit. Once they got comfortable with me and my work, they just started calling me regularly.

Of course now I gotta network into OTHER firms... god what a nightmare.

 

[Jeremy Lim]

My suggestion is to stay in school and get a real degree. This will take your photography places that 99% of the supreme top notch photographers can never go.

Look at Ansel Adams, one of the best photographers in the world... was pretty much penniless his whole life.

Jerry speaks the truth. I wanted to go into music, but going into marketing gave me the opportunity to really schmooze and grow in understanding what people want. When you think of it, each photograph is a product catered to a specific market. Once you get into that mentality, shots (or even songs) become a lot easier to pull together.

As for the second point - penniless isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'd still advise going to school for something that will expand your horizons and get you in front of lots of people (e.g. business), but it should be clarified that there's nothing wrong with choosing the hard path if it leads you to passion.