Questions for the experienced photographers

Well as you can see from my post count I have been around this forum for quite a while. When amatuers come on and say pretty much what you said "I just started taking pictures now I want to start a business" plus the OP has a low post count madness usually ensues hence the troll comment. I have not been around for a little while but this has always been the case with a post like this so if I angred you I apologise.

Really though, I have to say you are putting the cart before the horse. If you REALLY are thinking about trying to "go pro" the very first thing you need to do, as I already said is buy a DSLR. A P+S will not cut it you need at least a DLSR and personally I would say a good one with fast lenses but you can get started shooting with a basic package.

I reccomended this forum to her. She was given a Sony A350 for christmas as she mentioned a post or two above this.

The next step is of course shoot shoot shoot. Post some images here to get critiqued and shoot some more etc. etc. etc.... Alot of people (including myself) have put alot of their lives and money into becoming "professional" and some find people like you as offensive as you found my post. Not me of course I was just saying you probably have alot to learn and should do so before you start talking "professional".

Now this I think would have been a great contribution to her original post. I'm sorry that you are frustrated by all the people who enjoy taking pictures and think that they might like to try doing it for a living. Yes lots of people do and some give photographers a bad name. This happens in any industy and always will. She asked for help that was all... If you really don't want to, than don't.


This isn't directed at anyone in particular but just something that has been bugging me. I will make sure that I don't reccomend this board to anyone else as first and sometimes uneducated posts are slammed fairly often :( Some of us really do want to learn though.
 
It could all just be in you or it could take a while..it all depends on your curiosity...the moroe you read, practice, etc = the more you will be able to learn...you might not understand certain things when you read them the first time, but you might bump into it later down the road and get it right away...read, read, read...practice,practice,practice...ask questions, go through the thousands of topics here in the forum, find your area of interest(landscape,portraits,etc) and work on it ...
 
Hey Leanne if this is you, It's sweetie from BnB wanted to say Hi and happy to see that you came to check things out here. There are some people on here who get tired of the I wanna be a professional questions cuz there are a lot of them. I know that you are totally interested in this and I hope that you don't take to heart what some of the people on here have to say. Please do hang around and check things out a bit more. There is an awesome search feature that I have found very helpful.
Hope to see you around :)

Hello :) Nice to see you!
 
I reccomended this forum to her. She was given a Sony A350 for christmas as she mentioned a post or two above this.



Now this I think would have been a great contribution to her original post. I'm sorry that you are frustrated by all the people who enjoy taking pictures and think that they might like to try doing it for a living. Yes lots of people do and some give photographers a bad name. This happens in any industy and always will. She asked for help that was all... If you really don't want to, than don't.


This isn't directed at anyone in particular but just something that has been bugging me. I will make sure that I don't reccomend this board to anyone else as first and sometimes uneducated posts are slammed fairly often :( Some of us really do want to learn though.

Thank you for this! :hug::
 
Because I was taken wrongly and thought of as a troll, let me start over again.

The main area of photography that I want to get into is portraits. Firstly, portraits of kids and because I have some great subjects of my own, it's probably a good idea to start there.

Now, I don't have this big goal of doing this professionally right away. There's a lot to learn inbetween. It may happen this year, next year...who knows. Being realistic, I would eventually like to do a "small" business and do it part-time and see where it goes from there. I have enough going on in my day-to-day world that keeps me busy enough.

And, yes, all of it boils down to learning the ins and outs of my camera and about photography. I don't expect this to happen overnight as nothing ever does :)

I have to laugh because I am not so silly to think that a Point and Shoot camera is going to get me there, nor that a point and shoot camera will get me to a goal of a small business. Thus the reason why I do have a lovely Sony DSLR camera that I requested for Christmas.
 
It is possible for someone inexperienced to start in a small way. I run a print shop, in the couple of months running up to Christmas we did a lot of work for a local lady who was using her Canon Rebel to take family portraits of friends.

She was having us print Christmas cards with these portraits on them. We did six jobs for her and with each one you could see her improve. She's probably never going to make her entire living at photography but she has found a small niche in the local market that she can fill.
 
I think the biggest mistake people make in getting into any business, and I realized this when I had a successful online gift business, that you can't cover everything. You have to find one niche and work on that niche.

I think it's feasible that one can start small too. I am at an advantage that I have two kids in school and eventually I can maybe reap some business from other moms who want portraits of their kids, etc.

When I had my baby 4 months ago, a mom at school did some portraits of my newborn. It was then that I realized, I could do this on my own, I have a bit more creativity than she does, and if I can learn about photography, I can do this.

I also seen that from my kid's first pictures at school this year that the photographers really don't take the time to spend with the kids. I had to get my kid to do retakes as the first ones were horrid as the photographer didn't take the time to get them smiling properly, etc. If I learned about the proper lighting, I could probably do a better job than what they do. LOL
 
Just to indicate that not all pros spend a great deal of time running their own business or trying to market their services to the general public.

Some get themselves hired into a company or organization, demonstrate their photo skills in public relations events or presentations and eventually get shifted with higher pay over to the media and communications department. The person then just puts in a purchase order for whatever equipment he/she wants to do the job and gets plenty of paid experience in a considerable variety of photographic assignments. While doing that you will be approached by colleagues and execs to do corporate portraits, weddings, and all kinds of other work on the side for extra pay. Learning television production as well and putting together media presentations can lead toward a management position at greater pay than many pros running their own businesses, or if not equal to the pay of the very top pros, at least permanent and predictable pay plus extra jobs on the side.

skieur
 
So the assumption on your camera was my mistake. Not being a Sony guy I actually did not know the A350 was a DSLR but I do stand by th troll thing. I am not saying you are a troll now, you have clarified your intentions. Actually, your last post would have been a better original post and that supports what I said about things being clarified will make this a better discussion.
You say you are a mod for a pregnancy oard so you know the definition of a troll is someone who makes a controversial statement just to stir up trouble. As I said this subject comes up all the time (or used to at least) and it stirs things up. As I said your later statement that was more tempered should have been your original post.

Being a father (and an uncle many times over) myself I have seen alot of crap that comes from "moms with cameras" with Digital Rebels that think they are "profesional" photographers and charge their clients as such. This kind of "professional" has done alot to destroy he market for "real" "profesional" photographers who paid their dues and actually spent blood sweat and tears and tons of money to hone their craft enough to be able to cal themselves "professional".
 
So the assumption on your camera was my mistake. Not being a Sony guy I actually did not know the A350 was a DSLR but I do stand by th troll thing. I am not saying you are a troll now, you have clarified your intentions. Actually, your last post would have been a better original post and that supports what I said about things being clarified will make this a better discussion.
You say you are a mod for a pregnancy oard so you know the definition of a troll is someone who makes a controversial statement just to stir up trouble. As I said this subject comes up all the time (or used to at least) and it stirs things up. As I said your later statement that was more tempered should have been your original post.

Being a father (and an uncle many times over) myself I have seen alot of crap that comes from "moms with cameras" with Digital Rebels that think they are "profesional" photographers and charge their clients as such. This kind of "professional" has done alot to destroy he market for "real" "profesional" photographers who paid their dues and actually spent blood sweat and tears and tons of money to hone their craft enough to be able to cal themselves "professional".

Then you must know what it's like to try and do something, like making a clarified post, when you have kids needing you every few minutes and trying to get the right wording across with distractions.

As for trolls, yes, certainly do know all about them. But the difference is, we give them a chance to screw themselves up before outright coming out and calling them a troll. We all know the more someone speaks, the more truths or untruths come out.

And being the professional that you are you also know what it probably was like before you started out, how confusing things were at the beginning, you probably wondered where to even begin, where to go from this point to this point. You may even have asked questions that many people would think you silly for asking. But you did, and it's the silly questions that help you learn. If you don't ask questions, you don't learn. So perhaps a bit of understanding to someone who is just starting out.
 
So the assumption on your camera was my mistake. Not being a Sony guy I actually did not know the A350 was a DSLR but I do stand by th troll thing. ".

The Sony A350 is a good camera that requires good lenses to get the resolving power out of its 14.2 megapixels. The best of the Minolta lenses, the Sony G lenses, and the Zeiss lenses are ideal for that camera.

skieur
 
And being the professional that you are you also know what it probably was like before you started out, how confusing things were at the beginning, you probably wondered where to even begin, where to go from this point to this point. You may even have asked questions that many people would think you silly for asking. But you did, and it's the silly questions that help you learn. If you don't ask questions, you don't learn. So perhaps a bit of understanding to someone who is just starting out.

Actually as I said I started shooting at like 10, I shot tons of pictures all through high school including publishing a 'zine with a friend (no big deal). I went to a 2 year school for photography with lots of small internships while I was there. I graduated and had a full portfolio and resume to show to perspective employers so no, I was not confused or lost I knew hust what I was looking for. Even then when I started doing weddings I worked for someone else and shadowed him for several weddings to train and get the experience in that field before I jumped in headlong. Ann EVEN THEN I worked for peanuts for 2 years with a non-compete contract to get the experience I needed to make decent money.

By the way I did not acutually say you were a troll I simply suggested you might be one because this comes up so much.
 
This whole thing is becoming ridiculous!
The OP is upset at something that was said in a forum and somebody made a comment and then wants to leave.....
WOW!!!
With that thin of skin, how do you think you will ever make it in the professional world when somebody criticizes your work?

Just my two cents and that is all that I need to say
 

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