Ditto that, for me, Mike. The thing is most people think professional photographer = famous photographer. There are many, many professional photographers in the world. There are few famous photographers. I read somewhere a few years back that the average wage for full time photographers was $21,000 a year which is pretty close to what I made when I tried long ago. I bet most of those reading this list make quite a bit more than that. To be a professional photo you need to be 1. reliable. 2. competent (not great). 3. cheaper than the other guy. Probably the most impotant skill for a professional photographer is not photography, but self-promotion.
In my opinion, most serious ameteurs are more skilled at photography than most professionals. Ciao, Graywolf http://pages.prodigy.net/graywolfphoto ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Johnston" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 8:58 AM Subject: A brief harrumph > > In fact, I seem to recall that > > I've read someplace around Luminous Landscape that Mike thinks of > > anyone who earns money with their camera and lenses as professional, > > and the rest he considers amateurs of various levels. > > > If I'm the Mike you're talking about (and you weren't talking about Michael > Reichmann, who goes by "Michael"), I'm not sure I particularly care about > the issue one way or the other. Pros know who they are, and there isn't much > mistaking a real pro. Where I differ from most hobbyists is that I don't > consider pros to be the best photographers. I admire their skills, business > acumen, and problem-solving abilities, but generally I think that doing > photography in return for money under the direction of someone else is not a > very good way to make good pictures. > > Albert Watson, for instance, is tremendously skilled and makes a million > dollars a year (actually that's probably considerably underestimated). But > by his own admission he photographs mainly "blue jeans, sunglasses, and > suits." His job is to make blue jeans, sunglasses and suits look cool, new, > and visually exciting, and constantly find new ways to do so. Not an easy > task, but then again the end result is just not something I particularly > care about. > > Another famous pro once said that his challenge was to take a picture with a > perfume bottle in it that would still be a wonderful picture if it didn't > have the perfume bottle in it. But his tragedy, of course, is that he cannot > take the perfume bottle out. > > Overall, I'm not very charitable to pros. Anyone who wishes to do so may > write this off to envy, sour grapes, prejudice, whatever. But I like _art_. > > --Mike >
