I just need to VENT!

[runnah]

What is the middle part?

Unimaginable pain and suffering.

 

[snowbear]

If you are learning the craft, take pride in that. Worry about how to give your (potential) customers the best product that you can.

 

[robbins.photo]

So you... a year into being a photographer... have the audacity to complain about other people daring to break into the industry?

Seriously?

This has been a test of the emergency crazed bunny response system. This was only a test. Had this been a full blown ninja bunny attack, the warning tone you just heard would have been followed by news and information. This was only a test. We now return you to your regularly scheduled forum activity.

 

[sleist]

What is the middle part?

Unimaginable pain and suffering.

With a first course of sex to keep you off balance and hopeful.

 

[minicoop1985]

What is the middle part?

Unimaginable pain and suffering.

With a first course of sex to keep you off balance and hopeful.

And a side of "We can still be friends" to rub salt in the wounds.


Steve5D said somewhere "If you only nail it 80% of the time, you'll never make it in this business." This is why I have no desire to be a professional. I give you guys that are a lot of credit-it's something I can't say I could do, that's for sure.

 

[NancyMoranG]

Did anyone notice our OP has left the building, like on page 2?
Nancy

 

[AmberAtLoveAndInk]

Thanks for the responses? I'm not going to sit around all day defending myself to a point that doesn't get past anyone's ears (or eyes rather) so I'll leave on this note..
I needed to vent. Maybe get a few words of encouragement from pros with years of experience who have seen and heard it all, maybe even get a few tips on what I can do to make myself more marketable or improve. I am eager to learn as much as I can about this business. At least I'm not parking my camera in auto all day and crossing my fingers that photoshop will deliver the goods from a crappy photo. I am putting my all in. My situation isn't ideal since I have next to no budget to work with but I am doing what I can. I'm improving as efficiently as I can. It's quite rude and unhelpful that so many of you just want to comment on the status of my skill level. What it boils down to is that I am not pissed about someone new breaking into this industry, I'm pissed because I know these people personally and the only artistic skill these women ever had in highschool was being able to shake their pom-poms to the "GO DEVILS" school cheer at the same time. Thanks again. Over & out.

 

[ratssass]

i like turtles

 

[astroNikon]

Thanks for the responses? I'm not going to sit around all day defending myself to a point that doesn't get past anyone's ears (or eyes rather) so I'll leave on this note..
I needed to vent. Maybe get a few words of encouragement from pros with years of experience who have seen and heard it all, maybe even get a few tips on what I can do to make myself more marketable or improve. I am eager to learn as much as I can about this business. At least I'm not parking my camera in auto all day and crossing my fingers that photoshop will deliver the goods from a crappy photo. I am putting my all in. My situation isn't ideal since I have next to no budget to work with but I am doing what I can. I'm improving as efficiently as I can. It's quite rude and unhelpful that so many of you just want to comment on the status of my skill level. What it boils down to is that I am not pissed about someone new breaking into this industry, I'm pissed because I know these people personally and the only artistic skill these women ever had in highschool was being able to shake their pom-poms to the "GO DEVILS" school cheer at the same time. Thanks again. Over & out.

happens all the time.
A friend sees that you are into photography and make some money at it
and they think .. I can do that

hey .. cameras are cheap after all (on the low end). The problem starts escalating for them when they start learning $tuff $$$$

as mentioned by everyone .. what differentiates you and them is skill and experience. Their low ball price only goes so far until their clientele notices too. Can't do much for people wanting to pay lowball prices for things and end up being dissatisfied. Just search this forum for weddings gone wrong.

 

[MGRPhoto]

I'm curious.... to the veteran studio/wedding photographers who have replied with something along the lines of "this has always been the case".... do you not think it has changed recently? I've seen quite a few 30+ year old studios go out of business in the last couple of years and I got a chance to talk to one of the owners the other day. He told me that people just don't care about quality photography anymore. Quite a few wedding bookings he had over the past few years were canceled because the client's "uncle" had an iPhone and it has a great camera. Once upon a time the client would have been upset by the outcome of having someone with no photography experience take their wedding photos with any iPhone. I guess that's not the case anymore. Nowadays with the popularity of stupid things Instagram all you have to do is put some dirty filter on a crappy photo and it becomes a phenomenal work of art. People are become numb to crappy quality. I've seen so many people posting senior portraits and wedding photos that were clearly done by an amateur with something along the lines of Instagram that I'm no longer surprised these high end studios are going out of business. And they thinks it's great photography just because it has a stupid digital vintage filter or something applied to it. Maybe it's just a regional thing? As I said just curious to see if you guys have seen the same.

 

[Designer]

It's quite rude and unhelpful that so many of you just want to comment on the status of my skill level.

No comment here, but repeating my question: How good are you?

In case you're still reading here, even if you don't choose to respond; ARE you any good?

This is relevant to many of the posts here that tell you to to never mind the wannabes and just be a better photographer.

 

[gsgary]

Thanks for the responses? I'm not going to sit around all day defending myself to a point that doesn't get past anyone's ears (or eyes rather) so I'll leave on this note..
I needed to vent. Maybe get a few words of encouragement from pros with years of experience who have seen and heard it all, maybe even get a few tips on what I can do to make myself more marketable or improve. I am eager to learn as much as I can about this business. At least I'm not parking my camera in auto all day and crossing my fingers that photoshop will deliver the goods from a crappy photo. I am putting my all in. My situation isn't ideal since I have next to no budget to work with but I am doing what I can. I'm improving as efficiently as I can. It's quite rude and unhelpful that so many of you just want to comment on the status of my skill level. What it boils down to is that I am not pissed about someone new breaking into this industry, I'm pissed because I know these people personally and the only artistic skill these women ever had in highschool was being able to shake their pom-poms to the "GO DEVILS" school cheer at the same time. Thanks again. Over & out.

Removed Admin -- KEEP IT CLEAN!

 

[robbins.photo]

Thanks for the responses? I'm not going to sit around all day defending myself to a point that doesn't get past anyone's ears (or eyes rather) so I'll leave on this note..

Hmm.. you know the last time a woman left me a note it was to tell me we were getting divorced - so not a big fan of the leave a note process.. lol

I needed to vent. Maybe get a few words of encouragement from pros with years of experience who have seen and heard it all, maybe even get a few tips on what I can do to make myself more marketable or improve. I am eager to learn as much as I can about this business.

Which is great. The thing to keep in mind though is that at least in my experience professional photographers are a pretty independent minded bunch. They work in a very competitive field where even the smallest edge or advantage can sometimes mean the difference between getting a gig and losing one, so by and large they just really aren't a huggy/sympathetic bunch really. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the pros we have that frequent the forum are great people who will readily share a lot of extremely valuable information.

But stop and think for a moment how frustrated you are by all these people with almost no skill whatsoever trying to break into the photography business, competing directly with you for customers and driving down prices. As you mentioned in your vent, that really stinks. Now just imagine going through that same frustration not for 1 year, but for 10, or 15, or 20 or even more. From their perspective you are doing the same thing to them that the other photographers in your area with almost no experience are doing to you. I'm not saying your wrong or bad for starting your own business and obviously at least some of the folks in the area must be happy with the results or you probably would be out of business by now.

But the thing to keep in mind is that for a lot of the folks who shoot pro and have for a long time they've been dealing with this same frustation themselves, so try to understand where they are coming from on this one - that's really all I'm saying.

As to the criticism about your work, well really the only folks who's opinions about the quality of your work should matter are your paying customers. If you can find some useful information in some of the various critique from the peanut gallery, great - use it to improve. If you can't, discard it and move on. Not much point in getting bent out of shape about the opinions of folks who are never going to be paying customers anyway.

At least I'm not parking my camera in auto all day and crossing my fingers that photoshop will deliver the goods from a crappy photo.

Is that a bad thing? lol..

I'm pissed because I know these people personally and the only artistic skill these women ever had in highschool was being able to shake their pom-poms to the "GO DEVILS" school cheer at the same time. Thanks again. Over & out.

I guarantee you if you were to post pictures of that they'd get rave reviews.. lol. But being serious for a moment (which is very much out of character for me so it may not come off right), if you really want my advice just do your thing and focus on the stuff that will improve your business, which at the moment of course is mostly going to be improving your skills. Don't worry about what anyone else says or does and just focus on the stuff you can control, not the stuff you can't.

Just my 2 cents worth of course, your mileage may vary.

 

[Derrel]

It's quite rude and unhelpful that so many of you just want to comment on the status of my skill level.

No comment here, but repeating my question: How good are you?

In case you're still reading here, even if you don't choose to respond; ARE you any good?

This is relevant to many of the posts here that tell you to to never mind the wannabes and just be a better photographer.

Yes, many people have left the business, because there is MUCH more competition from people like yourself. It's true--the quality of "professional photography" has declined, markedly so, over the entire span of the digital age, as more and more newbies have hung out shingles and begun calling themselves professional photographers after a year or two of learning the basics of how to operate a camera. The people who offer real, genuine skill and artistry with a camera are still working, but the vast majority of beginner-level and even intermediate-level people are not having a lot of monetary success it seems. The smarter ones among this flood of new "professional photographers" have moved onto weddings, where a couple of years' worth of learning and practicing how to operate a camera and a flash and a few lenses is what passes for being a "wedding photographer" these days, and it's a genre where they can change a couple thousand dollars or more for six hours of shooting and a day or so of post work.

Studying how to operate a camera, learning f/stops and shutter speeds and focusing points is NOT what determines success. There's much,much,much more to it. THere's marketing and business skills, getting paperwork done and sent out, collecting receipts, accounting, building relationships, as well as the entire SKILL-SET and ABILITY-SET that a really successful photographer should have. Studying how to operate a camera really isn;t much of an accomplishment, but it seems like a lot of new professional photographers think that since they started with zero knowledge that once they get just a tiny bit of competence, that they are really good, and that the money will just start flowing in.

 

[KmH]

Studying how to operate a camera really isn;t much of an accomplishment, but it seems like a lot of new professional photographers think that since they started with zero knowledge that once they get just a tiny bit of competence, that they are really good, and that the money will just start flowing in.

QFT.