Steps to Succeeding as a Pro

[Alpha]

1. Be cheaper than anyone better than you
2. Be better than anyone cheaper than you
3. Remove the lens cap

 

[jols]

and dont forget your batteries

 

[wildmaven]

Or your brain.

 

[Big Mike]

Depends on your definition of successful.

You could say...Charge more for doing less...and have people pay you for that.

 

[Alpha]

Meh. It's all bell-curve anyway.

 

[craig]

4. Be willing to get your knees dirty.

Love & Bass

 

[skieur]

4. Be willing to get your knees dirty.

Love & Bass

A little more than than that.

Be willing to get frozen, lost, overheated, attacked by man and animal, fall into freezing water, and generally risk life and limb. (Of course I am not talking about simple portrait or wedding photography.)

skieur

 

[The Phototron]

The steps will be different for everybody. I imagine there are fast learners and slow learners. Naturally. But even for the slow learners if they stick to it, they can manage it. The worst that can happen is giving up, other than that you are on your way to well...just better. Getting better is your only reward.

I'm saying all this as a beginner, but I know how's it going to be: frustration and doubts about my own ability; I just don't know how it'll happen yet. Things like that, frustration and doubts, will happen again and again, even if people start to consider me as a professional. Because there's something call "comparison." There's always going to be "better" photographers.

"Success" would be getting on the same level as them. That's why success is different for everyone, because they got different standards. There's success in terms of Ansel Adams, and there's success in terms of your local senior portrait photographer.

So success shouldn't be defined as something final, but something continuous and infinite. Something you always strive for, again because of something call "comparison."

Maybe this analogy will help, imagine if you step on a pedal, and some sort of meter starts to raise upward gradually, but there's no end point. And if you step off, it will start to decline slowly. For some people, if they step on the pedal, the meter will raise quicker, and others slower. But the mechanism is the same, if they step on it, the meter raises, if they step off, the meter declines.

My point again, there's only one step to success in photography, sticking to it. And success isn't final and different for everybody, so the only way to measure it is to measure how much you are improving.

 

[Alpha]

Wow. I didn't realize that my joke was going to trigger an actual discussion. Cool.

 

[The Phototron]

Wow. I didn't realize that my joke was going to trigger an actual discussion. Cool.

No, no, your joke was good. I just didn't have a good joke to respond with. So I thought why not talk about it.

 

[craig]

Since we are talking about it... I meant "get your knees dirty" in the most vulgar sense.

Love & Bass

 

[Alpha]

in the dirtiest sense.

get it?

 

[craig]

Got it.

Love & Bass