Photography

The more I learn about the busi­ness of pho­tog­ra­phy, the less I want to be part of it. I’ve said I’m get­ting out of it be­fore and ended up get­ting back into it, but now I’m pretty sure it’s not go­ing to be my ca­reer. (If you’re in­ter­ested in be­com­ing a pro­fes­sional photo­grapher, you’re at the wrong blog. Try these in­stead: A Photo Editor, Photo Business News, Photopreneur.)

First of all, I don’t like be­ing a sales­man, but pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­phy (stock, com­mer­cial, wed­ding, doesn’t mat­ter) is more of a sales job than any­thing else. That’s some­thing I should have known from the very be­gin­ning. I have enough pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ence in sales to know that to be good at it, it has to be ma­jor part of your life, 24/​7, and I’m not will­ing to make that kind of com­mit­ment (or sac­ri­fice, ac­tu­ally). In fact I’m pretty much an­ti­so­cial so sell­ing my­self re­ally goes against my nature.

Secondly, pho­tog­ra­phy is way too ex­pen­sive. I can’t af­ford to keep up with the lat­est toys. Just to give an idea to those who have no idea, my cur­rent dig­i­tal SLR bod­ies cost me about $3000, my lenses about $3000, and my com­puter stuff about $3000 also. My light­ing equip­ment only add up to about $1000 be­cause I’ve sold most of them. And of course my cam­eras are ob­so­lete now, and pretty soon my com­puter will be also.

And lastly, the pho­tog­ra­phy com­mu­nity in gen­eral is just re­tarded. I’m sorry if this of­fends some peo­ple but se­ri­ously, too many peo­ple don’t know what they’re talk­ing about and need to shut up. Too many peo­ple giv­ing bad ad­vice. Too many sell­outs. Too many peo­ple talk­ing smack about oth­ers for no rea­son. And too many bad pho­tos from so-​​called pro­fes­sion­als. I never felt this way about the artist com­mu­nity, or even the au­to­mo­tive community.

One of my res­o­lu­tions for 2008 is gonna be to treat pho­tog­ra­phy strictly as a hobby and as an artis­tic medium. (No this does not mean I’m gonna stop charg­ing money.)

No more wed­dings and the like. I hated shoot­ing that crap.

No more model shoots with girls who just want to be pretty. Artistic shoots only.

No more par­ties that I know are go­ing to be bor­ing. No sluts? No photos.

Basically I’m gonna have fun shoot­ing or I’m not gonna shoot. That’s the way it should be. And now I need to find a real job.