I had a blog called Advice for Noob Photographers where I kept telling people not to become professional photographers, but I don’t update it anymore. It was too depressing. I’ll copy some articles over to this blog sometime.
For better advice about becoming a pro photographer, head over to Ken Rockwell’s website. He recently wrote an article titled How to Afford Anything, which of course caught my attention because I can’t afford nothing (except right now because I’m in China, where I can afford noodles). The article is geared toward photographers, as is the rest of his site. After reading the article, I felt a lot better about never buying flowers for my woman.
I don’t agree with everything he writes but he is dead-on correct about many things, like Nikon being better than Canon. (I forget what page but I’m sure he said that.) And every noob aspiring to go pro should read his How to Go Pro article. Ken Rockwell tells it like it is:
“The photo jobs and locations that pay the most are the most boring.”
“Because [photography is] fun, people looking to hire photographers can always find someone to do it for less.”
“Of course the average debt level of the people who got jobs and went to Brooks was $74,000 each. That means you might break even in 40 years.”
“Photography skills are a very, very small part of the business.”
“God bless teachers, but if they could cut it in the competitive business world they probably would be, instead of analyzing it in class for much, much less pay.”
Seriously I think the best way to make money in the photography field is probably to sell stuff to aspiring photographers, like light modifiers ($40 piece of plastic), Photoshop actions ($60 curves), workshops ($2000 bullshit), etc. Hmm…
Come back soon for new offerings from DKwan.com!
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go get some camera bags and sell em for 5x when you get back to the US..my friend Eric picked up a rolling camera bag for like 1/3 the price
If it’s 1/3 the price, I don’t think I can sell it for 5x. :P