I'm a beginner and still in the proccess of getting into photography.
The first reason I decided to buy my first dSLR 1 year ago was because I have a webdesign company, and even though I have a mayor on computer systems/programming, I also love design/art, I do have skills for it, so in webdesign I'm able to combine both.
Then I realized I actually also love marketing, sales, branding, innovation etc. so in my company I was creating a new product to offer, which it was Spherical Panoramas(360x360) for our web design customers who wanted panoramas of their facilities....
... and without knowing anything about photo equipment, I dive in on the web for like 2 months learning mostly about panoramas, and I end up buying a Nikon D80, a Tokina 10-17 and the nodal ninja...
Then I saw that if had a dSLR why not going all the way and offer also some business focused Photog services, not professionaly but more on the side of complementing our customers business profiles which will end up being on their website. So instead of going to their office with a P&S and telling them to say "cheese".. I dived in again and researched and bought more Photo equipment.
Then a started to study, and read, and study again, etc. about phothography. Bought some books and such.
Now, one of the things that increased my interest on photography was when I stumbled upon Fer Juaristi's work, specially his wedding photos, he pretty much shows you what photography is capable of, with this I mean more like Photography uses Fer Juaristi's skills in order to show itself.
Well, I know, I might as well don't know too many photographers.
We were lucky to have him shoot a session of our family like 2 years ago, my brother has a Rock band and knew Fer because he shoot some photos at a concert and showed them to the Rock bands playing that day.
I do have my current business priorities but I'll keep an eye on photography to see if I have a chance at it, as a hobby maybe but still enough to enjoy it.