Selling photos to others is not "the natural progression of photography"

[charchri4]

My belief is that the interest in selling, in making money exerts too much of a distorting influence on how I personally take pictures.
It is difficult enough for me to make pictures that I like and I don't need to add another point of pressure.

This is a really interesting and enlightening point I had not considered. Thank you for posting your thoughts here.

 

[Buckster]

I started reading and watching and keeping up with this thread from when it was first posted, trying to wrap my head around it, but four pages later, I still don't get the point.

Sure, monetary gain ISN'T the ONLY reason to pursue photography, but who said it IS? Nobody that I know of. Lots of people, new at it AND old hands, don't pursue monetary gain as THE REASON to shoot. But for those who want to, so what?

I keep reading the new posts as they pop up and, while some have some interesting points I suppose, I find myself still asking questions like, "why should I care what anyone else wants to do with their time, their efforts, their money, their lives? If it makes them feel happy or fulfilled or engaged in life to pursue something, ANYTHING, that doesn't harm me, why should I pound a virtual nail or three into them for it? Who are we to take a giant poop on that happiness?"

If they "suck", so what?
If they make money with their "suck", so what?
If others are willing to pay them for their "suck", so what?
If they don't take the proper precautions and get sued over their "suck", so what?

And I don't care if we're talking about photography, basket weaving, or anything else. So what?

Why is it never enough for some to just do what fulfills their lives and makes it enjoyable to them, and allow others to do the same? Why do they feel this need to denigrate others for doing or not doing what THEY think those others should or should not be doing?

I don't get that.

 

[charchri4]

Buckster my take away is people who actually do good work don't want the market dumbed down by people trying to sell crap and the market has no idea what is crap.

 

[Derrel]

Take your cupcake and muffin baking to the next level--open a business selling muffins and cupcakes! Friends, family, work associates, friends of friends--ALL of these people are dying to have YOUR cupcakes and muffins filling their tummies! Professional cupcake and muffin cookery is the subject of my Oct 31 Halloween Baking and Cash Raking seminar at the Biltmore Fantasy Lodge, only $899, with a FREE gift of a 2 x 12 muffin tin set for all attendees!

Take your interest in shade tree mechanic work to the next level--buy thousands of dollars of tools and repair manuals and start a business out of your home, repairing motorcycles! Here, take my seminar in how to get started, only $499!

Turn YOUR ability to send e-mails into a full-time,money-making business as a personal secretary to people who are lousy typists! Utilize your incredible, rare, special abilities with computers and e-mail software and start making money NOW! Making real, folding money-sending e-mails for people who have no e-mail abilities!

Turn your love of watching movies on Netflix into a career as a full-time movie reviewer for YOUR local newspaper! Nevermind the watercooler chat about movies, that's for saps. Take my seminar at the airport Holiday Inn this weekend, and start earning CASH for YOUR movie review insights! Attend my seminar, only $349 pre-registered, $459 at the door!

You shop for groceries. Everybody does. But if you're motivated, you can turn your grocery shopping trips into money-making, amazing outings where you shop for neighbors, friends, family, and people in your town or city! Start making money this week, by taking my Shop For Others and Make Serious Money Seminar at the downtown Shilo Inn. Only $199 + tax.

 

[clel miller]

^^^^^that was funny
Yeah, it is no different than being a
Carpenter
Painter
Truck-driver
Wood-worker
etc etc
You may be quite good at it, but doing it for a living is a Whole Different thing. I was in The Painters Union for 25 years, but I Never Wanted to be a Painting Contractor.
I worked in The Financial District of San Francisco, and was in the same 5 buildings for 10 years. People would get in the elevator with you on 1, and want you to tell them how to paint a door before they got off on 12. wtf.....

 

[Buckster]

Buckster my take away is people who actually do good work don't want the market dumbed down by people trying to sell crap and the market has no idea what is crap.

They can't stop the market from being "dumbed down" and they can't stop people from taking money for "crap" if people are willing to pay for it. So, all they're doing if that's their reason, is whining.

 

[Buckster]

Take your cupcake and muffin baking to the next level--open a business selling muffins and cupcakes! Friends, family, work associates, friends of friends--ALL of these people are dying to have YOUR cupcakes and muffins filling their tummies! Professional cupcake and muffin cookery is the subject of my Oct 31 Halloween Baking and Cash Raking seminar at the Biltmore Fantasy Lodge, only $899, with a FREE gift of a 2 x 12 muffin tin set for all attendees!

Take your interest in shade tree mechanic work to the next level--buy thousands of dollars of tools and repair manuals and start a business out of your home, repairing motorcycles! Here, take my seminar in how to get started, only $499!

Turn YOUR ability to send e-mails into a full-time,money-making business as a personal secretary to people who are lousy typists! Utilize your incredible, rare, special abilities with computers and e-mail software and start making money NOW! Making real, folding money-sending e-mails for people who have no e-mail abilities!

Turn your love of watching movies on Netflix into a career as a full-time movie reviewer for YOUR local newspaper! Nevermind the watercooler chat about movies, that's for saps. Take my seminar at the airport Holiday Inn this weekend, and start earning CASH for YOUR movie review insights! Attend my seminar, only $349 pre-registered, $459 at the door!

You shop for groceries. Everybody does. But if you're motivated, you can turn your grocery shopping trips into money-making, amazing outings where you shop for neighbors, friends, family, and people in your town or city! Start making money this week, by taking my Shop For Others and Make Serious Money Seminar at the downtown Shilo Inn. Only $199 + tax.

If they can pull if off, so what?

 

[beckylynne]

They say the Photography Business is 10% photography and 90% business.

 

[Buckster]

^^^^^that was funny
Yeah, it is no different than being a
Carpenter
Painter
Truck-driver
Wood-worker
etc etc
You may be quite good at it, but doing it for a living is a Whole Different thing. I was in The Painters Union for 25 years, but I Never Wanted to be a Painting Contractor.
I worked in The Financial District of San Francisco, and was in the same 5 buildings for 10 years. People would get in the elevator with you on 1, and want you to tell them how to paint a door before they got off on 12. wtf.....

Again - so what? If they want to try, so what? If they succeed, so what? If they fail, so what?

 

[sabbath999]

The point of this thread is that "selling" is "a" "possible" progression in photography, not "THE ONLY" progression in photography.

There are thousands upon thousands of people on Facebook selling workshops and action sets and workflow "kits" who beg to differ!

I'm shocked. There are thousands upon thousands of people on Facebook who are wrong!! OMG!!!

(but yeah, they do sell it pretty hard... they need a swift kick in the nads...)

 

[sabbath999]

Sure, monetary gain ISN'T the ONLY reason to pursue photography, but who said it IS?

A LOT of people say it is, and they are spending a LOT of money trying to invade the minds of new photographers and steer them down the path of "photography is for selling ." Nothing wrong with selling photos, it's just not the ONLY path, that's all I am saying.

I started this thread after a day of being inundated with all the hype of "turn your hobby into a goldmine" ads on my internet browser.

 

[clel miller]

[/QUOTE]
Again - so what? If they want to try, so what? If they succeed, so what? If they fail, so what?[/QUOTE]

Whoosh.......

 

[charchri4]

Take your cupcake and muffin baking to the next level--open a business selling muffins and cupcakes! Friends, family, work associates, friends of friends--ALL of these people are dying to have YOUR cupcakes and muffins filling their tummies! Professional cupcake and muffin cookery is the subject of my Oct 31 Halloween Baking and Cash Raking seminar at the Biltmore Fantasy Lodge, only $899, with a FREE gift of a 2 x 12 muffin tin set for all attendees!

Take your interest in shade tree mechanic work to the next level--buy thousands of dollars of tools and repair manuals and start a business out of your home, repairing motorcycles! Here, take my seminar in how to get started, only $499!

Turn YOUR ability to send e-mails into a full-time,money-making business as a personal secretary to people who are lousy typists! Utilize your incredible, rare, special abilities with computers and e-mail software and start making money NOW! Making real, folding money-sending e-mails for people who have no e-mail abilities!

Turn your love of watching movies on Netflix into a career as a full-time movie reviewer for YOUR local newspaper! Nevermind the watercooler chat about movies, that's for saps. Take my seminar at the airport Holiday Inn this weekend, and start earning CASH for YOUR movie review insights! Attend my seminar, only $349 pre-registered, $459 at the door!

You shop for groceries. Everybody does. But if you're motivated, you can turn your grocery shopping trips into money-making, amazing outings where you shop for neighbors, friends, family, and people in your town or city! Start making money this week, by taking my Shop For Others and Make Serious Money Seminar at the downtown Shilo Inn. Only $199 + tax.

While I recognize this is satire I also recognize it is really not fair. Plenty of people have gone from amateur to pro in all sorts of endeavors with nothing more than a little vision and a lot of determination. I've done it 3 times myself though to be fair I did seek training to build on my skill set before making the jump from hobby to full time. But plenty of people don't and there would be no such word as entrepreneur if millions had not done exactly what your examples represent.

For a lot of us your example of the shade tree mechanic is no different than photography. Nobody goes to a seminar to go from shade tree mechanic to pro technician. They either go to school for it or are interested enough to hang out on forums like this and learn their craft by experience. Sooner than later a car problem will come up in conversation with someone and the rest will be history.

I'm not saying any fool with a credit card can start a successful photography studio or take anything away from the professionals reading this. But it isn't exactly rocket science either...

 

[Derrel]

A LOT of people say it is, and they are spending a LOT of money trying to invade the minds of new photographers and steer them down the path of "photography is for selling ." Nothing wrong with selling photos, it's just not the ONLY path, that's all I am saying.

I started this thread after a day of being inundated with all the hype of "turn your hobby into a goldmine" ads on my internet browser.

Facebook in particular is filled with companies and individuals pumping up the idea of turning picture-taking into a "career", by the mere enrollment in a workshop, or by becoming a member of some learn-how-to group or learn-how-to course of instruction. I supposed we ought to thank the social media and web gods for all the watermark pro's we now have, people to whom we can turn when we want a 25 minute mini-session with "all images on CD" for $30.

I find it amusing how some people get all bent out of shape when viewpoints don't match their own, and the righteous indignation flows like mountain spring water. Hey....maybe we could bottle that water--and become the Righteous Indignation Spring Water company!

There are people who want to sell photos. Yippie-skippy! There are people who sell an occasional print, or two! Hooray! Let them. It's a free country.

HERE is a very interesting Facebook page, called Missy MWAC, "Your guide through the murky waters of Professional Photography."Missy Mwac

She also has another page Missy Mwac

I will not "spill the beans" on what, exactly, these are about. The answers might surprise some people. Don't be fooled by the names!

 

[Buckster]

Sure, monetary gain ISN'T the ONLY reason to pursue photography, but who said it IS?

A LOT of people say it is, and they are spending a LOT of money trying to invade the minds of new photographers and steer them down the path of "photography is for selling ."

Ahhh, I see. Well, I must admit, I missed those, which is weird since "a LOT of people say it" (that monetary gain is the ONLY reason to pursue photography).

I mean, I've seen lots of tutorial sites and books and videos advertised over the years, and started out myself in the late 60's / early 70's getting such books from the local library to start my journey to learn about my budding interest in photography. Some of the first that I got my eyeballs into were Ansel's, "The Camera", "The Negative" and, "The Print". I didn't know that they were only for people who intended to use them to figure out how to make money with photography, but I must not have been paying attention.

I made the bold assumption all these years that they were made for people who want to improve their photography or editing in some way, but I wrongly assumed that the target audience was ANYONE who wanted to improve for ANY reason, from just getting better at their hobby (with no intention of making money from it) up to getting to the point where they could make their hobby into something more (yes, selling their services), as so MANY have done with so MANY hobbies that people enjoy.

But now that you've informed us that "a LOT of people say" that the ONLY reason to pursue photography is for monetary gain, I'm sure you can throw a couple links out here to back that claim up, and I'm SURELY looking forward to it. It's always good to learn new things and see things in a fresh light.

Go for it. Educate me.