astroskeptic
TPF Noob!
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2008
- Messages
- 104
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There are millions of people who call themselves photographers, and they are for the most part entirely self-taught. No teachers. No mentor(s). No associates. No courses of study. No books, just the web. And many of these people are shooting "professionally" these days, meaning they accept money from people who will pay for their products. That's kind of what has happened lately. That is absolutely,positively NOT the way professional photography has been conducted and entered as a profession for the prior 150 years.
I would be willing to bet that a reasonably intelligent, motivated person with integrity could develop into a high quality pro using nothing more than the web as a resource; the fact that this may be a departure from tradition is irrelevant IMO.
I think much of the dialog around here assumes pseudo-pros without integrity but let's not forget that many people do have high levels of integrity and IMO there is exactly zero problem with a person selling a service, regardless of its quality, as long as they do not misrepresent themselves.
The problem you are all discussing, that of low-quality services flooding the market is something that, by assumption, a free market will take care of. It is certainly not unique to the photo industry. Digital cameras simply lowered entry barriers to the point where anyone can get into the game. Yes, the service supply side has gone way up and demand presumably hasn't changed so the inevitable result according to economic theory is price reduction. But the good news for you pros is that supply has only dramatically increased at the low-quality end of the service spectrum so hopefully if you're not competing in that end of the market, you're still in good shape.