Photography – Hobby turned profession

Introduction

Every now and then, one of us decides to call it a perfect angle for our Snapchat and Instagram stories and a perfect snapshot of the moment feels like a “Great Picture” in your phone’s gallery. But a lot of us have taken that a step further, investing into their skills behind a lens and working it into a profession of photography that they made something out of.

This has been leading to a non-deniable existence of a whole industry that constitutes of hobbyists turned into professionals when we look at photography as an ideal career plan. But is it that easy that finding the right spot or a good camera can ensure your long-term survival or is it really a long struggle that eventually allows you to put yourself in a position of success?

Being ready to become a photographer

 So before we begin, it must be clear to us that being ready to become a photographer is a daunting prospect for one’s future but the chance to work all day filling it with something you love is an idea most of us share deep in our closest desires.

In case you might think by technically breaking down the categories of photography and pursuing the most eligible skilled photographer of the desired category, you will find a quick route to the expertise of the lens, then you are mistaken. But just in case of one’s general curiosity, here’s a few fields of photography that are commonly known for their respective award winning photographers.

 

1) Fine Art Photography,

• Jonathan Chritchley, published in 2014.

2) Nature photography,

• Sandra Bartocha, Award winning freelancer.

3) Movie Photography,

• Alex Bailey.

4) Wildlife Photography,

• Richard Peters, BBC Countryfile photography competition winner, 2007.

What You Need to Know

Give or Take One –

It is necessary to track your money and how you spend even if you have a lavish source that would replenish the coffers quick enough, so it would only make sense that one should watch their spending habits when they start out in a profession and try their shot at ascending from the ranks of an “amateur’ to a “Professional”. And this doesn’t jump apply for your income or the money you spend on your “work” but the overall assimilated sum of your periodic expenditures, which in turn adds up and then pushes you to make cuts from your budgets and production costs which will affect you directly with your work.

The ‘Business People’ –

Make sure when you decide to go pro, you have a way of finding out how you are going to keep the clientele fresh and flowing good enough to sustain yourself and expand your business at the same time. If you arrive at a point where you have to scrape for work and find projects out of thin air, then you have unfortunately done something wrong with your plan and it’s time to take a step back and understand exactly what went wrong or what needs to be changed. So if that ever occurs, make sure you have a lucrative list of clients who are ready to offer you projects that will help you gross a good statement.

Having a ‘Back-Door’ –

This is often confused as a shaky leg in self-doubt and often pushes people into judging their choices and hence abandoning them at first sight of danger, so this can be called a trade only for a strong willed, but if you can understand what you need to do in case your plan fails and how to contain a situation, you are going in the right direction as most often it occurs to people too late that they do not have any way out of the situation they are stuck in and moreover they have nothing to support them through the struggle, so don’t find crutches to fall onto when you fail, but do keep close a way to bring food to the table.  

Persistent, patient curiosity

It is a common expression that “Rome was not built in a day” but we rarely seem to apply that to our own aspirations when we trade them for a “Secure” bag and a “Settled” life at the first sign of danger or a continued fight that ended in loss makes us give up our heartfelt calling to pursue our desire. It is often not understood by people but the basic necessity of any process is to give it ample amount of time for its own expansion or growth, whether it be a living, breathing, organic process or a more conceptual journey like building a career.

So applying that, we must allow time to take its course and shape our career according to our deserved place in the bigger picture, rather than forcing our dreams and aspirations on our nimble journey and expecting a smooth ride to train us for the perils we would face in the high seas.

So the question arises, how much time it takes to become a successful photographer. And the answer to this lies in the irony of the question as it is a definitive approach to find a conceptual answer which clearly doesn’t follow a singular approach of answering hence we come to the conclusion that there is no fixed time span or a method that will ensure you become a successful photographer, rather it is a simple as how much effort are you willing to turn in at what constant lengths to prove that you are indeed good enough to stand out in a crowd of expertly skilled professionals of your own field.

Shoot for the Moon

This only points out to the obvious that if you start turning a hobby into profession, make sure you are more invested in the work than what it gets you. 

So as long as you keep your head clear and your mind straight about the fact that the cheque you cash in after the shoot is just to sustain you and not your primal reason for becoming a photographer, you should do just fine. But once those lines mix, the person forgets the emotional and mental investment it takes to come up with something worth your pride.

Also read: March magazine of 2019