What can you do as a professional photographer ?? Degrees?

[Forkie]

I disagree with most of the people above me and think photography is still a great industry to get into and as long as you're doing a better job than the iPhone crew, and market yourself well, you can make a good living from it.

I would question why you need a degree to do it though. How are your photos now? How will a degree make your photos better? If you already have an eye, no degree will make your eye better. If you don't have an eye, will university give that to you or will it just tell you which buttons to press on the camera?

I would probably advise a business qualification over a photography one unless the genre of photography you want to go into specifically requires a degree. But if you're going to be working for yourself, aren't you the one who decides what qualifications you need?!

I've never had any formal training, and I've never really known what I want to do with it until the last year or so. Now I'm building my portfolio with freebies for people I know in the industry I'm interested in and they will help put my name and brand about, some time next year I might take a business course and then hopefully go it alone.

As Shme said, these days it is about your creativity and your brand. If shooting portraits, you need to sell not only the finished product, but the experience of having professional photos done and create photos nobody else has. A family of four sat in incremental steps on a brown mottled fabric backdrop isn't going to cut it in the 21st century. People want something more interesting and unique that nobody else has got. That is what people pay money for.