How many pro's do we have in these forums?

Are you paid to take photos

  • Im a full time photographer, paid, no other job

    Votes: 19 13.1%

  • I'm a part time photographer, paid with regularity, with an unrelated full time job

    Votes: 11 7.6%

  • I'm a part time photographer, paid with regularity, with no other job

    Votes: 7 4.8%

  • I'm a part time occasional photographer, paid whenever I make a bit of money

    Votes: 31 21.4%

  • I'm never paid to take photos, purely hobby.

    Votes: 77 53.1%
  • Total voters
    145
N

n30_mkii

Messages
468
Edit My Images
No
It's just occured to me that the quality of some of the work that is posted in these forums is first class. I'm just wondering if the majority of forum members are all amateur or if we have a large professional presence too? I think it would be interesting too know? Maybe have a poll to see what sort or ratio is here?
 
First you need to define pro. the photography world is split


pro = very very good at photography.. profesional in every way

pro = makes a living from it... does not follow that excellent photographers


If the former you wont get many big headed enough to put there hand up (although i can think of one haha) if the latter then it doesnt tie in with the great pics you talk about..


define pro ? :)
 
Do we really have to define professional yet again? Every bloody mention of pro in any thread and we define it. Can't we just accept pro = full time photographer with no other job.
 
God point, originally I was thinking about those who do this for a living. But as you mention that doesn't always follow suit with good photo's. I guess generally thats what I would like to know. If this was made into an annoymous poll surely people wouldn't mind answering. I don't have the plan of turning round and critisising anyone because they are a pro who makes money from their images. Just really trying to get a feel of the sort of people on here.

Maybe we could have a poll with the following

Pro -My main source of income comes from selling/taking photos
Semi-Pro - Consider myself very good at photography and make some money from it, but it is not a full time job for me
Amateur>Semi Pro - I feel I'm getting better and would like to move on to one of the above in the next year or so
Amateur - Been taking photos for a while, I have a good understanding and generally I'm happy in this area
Newcomer - I have a camera or looking to get a camera, I take a few shots now and then, looking to develop my knowledge and skills

Something along those lines, just to gauge where we are as a community, agree with Pete above about the definition
 
petemc said:
Do we really have to define professional yet again? Every bloody mention of pro in any thread and we define it. Can't we just accept pro = full time photographer with no other job.
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thats how i define pro.. and you and many others... but there was no way of knowing how the OP defined pro so i had to ask...
 
n30_mkii said:
Semi-Pro - Consider myself very good at photography and make some money from it, but it is not a full time job for me
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That would be where i would "fall in" to a catagory, but to consider myself "very good" would be defined by others :lol:

I use it as a part-time income, and would love to go pro in the next 10 years when i have some financial backing behind me and i have a kit that i am MORE then happy with
 
petemc said:
Do we really have to define professional yet again? Every bloody mention of pro in any thread and we define it. Can't we just accept pro = full time photographer with no other job.
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You should have said making a living out of photography,with no other job.

You can spend all your time taking photo and have no job at all (retired) that would not make you a pro.
 
I don't know how many pro's are on here, but if you want one go down Tib street in Manchester they have um there, I here.
 
whiteflyer said:
You should have said making a living out of photography,with no other job.

You can spend all your time taking photo and have no job at all (retired) that would not make you a pro.
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Ok ok. Clearly you knew what I meant. Given the context of the thread, professional photography, I doubt he meant a retired amatuer. :rollpies:
 
Does it really matter if you are a pro or not.
 
I think the definition should take into account 'some' level of experience.

Someone could leave their Tesco job today, and next week start as a full time photographer (with say 6months experience). Are they really a pro?
 
n30_mkii said:
Maybe we could have a poll with the following

Pro -My main source of income comes from selling/taking photos
Semi-Pro - Consider myself very good at photography and make some money from it, but it is not a full time job for me
Amateur>Semi Pro - I feel I'm getting better and would like to move on to one of the above in the next year or so
Amateur - Been taking photos for a while, I have a good understanding and generally I'm happy in this area
Newcomer - I have a camera or looking to get a camera, I take a few shots now and then, looking to develop my knowledge and skills
Click to expand...



Could we have a poll with just one option?
  • I enjoy taking photographs

And see how many votes we get? Because to be honest, I couldn't care less whether anyone here's a pro, semi-pro, pro-am, am-pro, semi am, amateur, retired, semi-retired, gear-freak, guru, n00b, etc etc, as long as they enjoy taking photos, and don't get shirty:thumbs:
 
Merovingian said:
I think the definition should take into account 'some' level of experience.

Someone could leave their Tesco job today, and next week start as a full time photographer (with say 6months experience). Are they really a pro?
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Yes. If they're full time job is professional photography then they're a pro. Honestly, how hard is this? The guy wanted to know how many professionals were here. Not how many good professionals or professionals who act profressionally.
 
reddeathdrinker said:
Could we have a poll with just one option?
  • I enjoy taking photographs

And see how many votes we get?
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Best post in the thread. :thumbs:

I got into this stupid game as a kid and by the time I was 15 I had a permanently set up darkroom and loved my photography, roaming around photographing frost and spiders webs etc etc. In my teens I got into doing pretty regular wedding and most forms of paid photography on a regular basis.

In my early 20s I started a job which involved me working most of the hours god sends and some he doesn't, but the wedding jobs kept coming and this usually meant my weekends off were gone and quite often I'd lamb off from work to fit them in thanks to some pretty understanding supervision. ;) The upshot of all this was that my camera rarely came out unless it was a job, and nice as the money was, a lot of the fun and pure enjoyment went out of photography for me.

When I retired I took up wedding photography full time for 8 years until the whole regular circus performance of it all just became so boring and tedious, and I packed it in altogether. Obviously I was in receipt of an occupational pension, so I've never been entirely dependent on photography for income, and frankly I really don't think I'd want to be.

These threads keep cropping up and it's understandable that peoples thoughts keep turning to making money or turning pro, but there's a very real danger that you can turn a pursuit you love into a tedious chore. Be careful what you wish for.

There are loads of full time pros here who keep a low profile and don't make a song and dance about it, the nice thing is that they come here for the same reasons as everyone else - a genuine love of photography, and if you aint got that you don't got nothing. ;)
 
Rank amateur, thats me, and absolutely no interest in going pro, for the reasons CT gave. If i could get my act together and sell some pics that would be nice, but i certainly dont want to be forced to take photos, would destroy the enjoyment for me 100%.
 
I agree with pete, if photography is your only source of income then that automatically makes you pro, does not matter how good you are or how much experience.

Take footballers, Ronaldo is a professional footballer, so is the John Doe playing for a League 2 team that spends half the year sitting on a bench on saturdays. They are both professional footballers.
 
Being paid to take photos doesn't stop you enjoying yourself, you (usually) just shoot something different to what you'd do for fun that's all

I don't find being paid to Shoot people a chore at all, it's all fun

:)

Of course some of the non-photo stuff is tedious, but only like any other job that has boring moments

DD
 
i'm gonna go with that i'm an amateur, i know where everything is on a camera and i know what everything does on it, i like to think i've jumped on the case of turning pro quite early as i started with my learning at 15.
 
If all the amatuers are going to state that they're not professionals this is going to be a very very very very long thread :p
 
At the risk of sounding like an old hippy, the important part of Pro Photographer or Amateur Photographer is Photographer.

What brings us together is far more important that what marks us apart. :D
 
i know what everyone means by the a photographer is a photographer statement, which is true.

however i think all the thread is aimed at is that the poster was curious to see what the percentage of users on the forum were making a living from it, nothing more
 
marcusp13 said:
however i think all the thread is aimed at is that the poster was curious to see what the percentage of users on the forum were making a living from it, nothing more
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Yer I got that impression too from reading the words and thinking about what they meant in the context of the thread title. :D Make a poll. Only full time professionals who earn their sole income from photography tick yes. Others tick no. We get result.
 
Yeah that was my thinking indeed, some sort of poll to see what variation we have here....Nothing more. This wasn't any sort of bare knuckle fight about what a pro photographer is. I know we all love taking pictures and I think such a diverse audience is truely a great thing. Please don't take this thread in an offensive way. Thats not what it was for. Thanks for those that have replied, could marcel or one of the modds add some sort of poll?
 
however i think all the thread is aimed at is that the poster was curious to see what the percentage of users on the forum were making a living from it, nothing more
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Absolutely, my comments were aimed at the discussion not at n30.

To answer the original question. Working snapper here. :)
 
Pro or no, the quality of this site is the best of any I've tried. Pay a visit to DPReview if you want a truly deafening signal to noise ratio ;)

And in my experience, being a professional is no guarantee of deep photographic knowledge. They're expertise is in earning a living, which is a real skill for sure, but not the same thing at all :D
 
HoppyUK said:
Pro or no, the quality of this site is the best of any I've tried. Pay a visit to DPReview if you want a truly deafening signal to noise ratio ;)
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That and they're a bunch of closed-minded arrogant *******s, from my experience.
 
welly said:
That and they're a bunch of closed-minded arrogant *******s, from my experience.
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You have either one too many * for ****ers, or one too few for Americans!
 
Englishs :thinking:
 
Chappers said:
Does it really matter if you are a pro or not.
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Well ya. The guy wanted to know. Plus professionals get to go on shoots amatuers may not, get access and live a different live. It can matter. Professionals wouldn't be writing and selling books on it if it didn't :p
 
petemc said:
Well ya. The guy wanted to know. Plus professionals get to go on shoots amatuers may not, get access and live a different live. It can matter. Professionals wouldn't be writing and selling books on it if it didn't :p
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And thats where the elitism starts sadly. Been there seen that, got the top.
 
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