Curious. I have recently determined I am an amature. Any one else?

[BosseBe]

Any Professional Photographer who can earn his/her income that way has to be respected!
She/he is delivering what the customers wants.

Of course a picture might be even better if you could spend infinite time to take it, but that is not possible for someone working to a dead-line!
And I suppose the customer often pays a fixed price, so the time involved has to considered to keep the profit enough to make a living.

But then there is probably different levels of Professional Photographers, some can demand a high price for their work because they are well known, some can keep the price lower because they know how to do it and don't have to experiment and some keep the price low to get the work they need but might not deliver at the same level.

 

[BobBill]

There are the "pros" who do weddings etc and do plainly, and those who, like "Highlander" do "well," but still for revenue. And there are those like the Vivians and Adams who do for its own sake. The differences may be subtle, but they are perceptble and apply to all "doings," which, to me, is "we are what we do, whole or in part."

Simple, yet simple things are often very difficult to explain, right?

 

[RichardC]

Occasionally, my little business which is predominantly baby products by mail order, is called upon to offer professional photography services to other companies (mainly my suppliers). I also do all of my own product photography.

This makes me a pro a few times a year.

However, even part time professionals need lots of gear, software, education - all of which are legitimately tax deductible ?. I'm very satisfied being majority amateur.

 

[BosseBe]

tax deductible

Ooh, what beautiful words!

 

[ata3001]

For years I have been a semi-pro. Only semi because I have been getting paid for my work, but have not been earning a living at it. I recently gave up my last paid, on-going photo gig & decided to retire from paid photo work. Now my photography is only for me. No more deadline pressures. The last photo gig I had lasted a full 7 years, doing the photography, then sorting thru roughly 42000 total images and then fully editing approx 8000 final images in Lightroom & Photoshop. I then needed to resize all final images for the clients use & transfer these final images to thumbdrives. I would then deliver them in person. These are totals for the entire 7 years.

 

[Mack]

With Olympus jumping ship on consumer cameras, that leaves them with the endoscope stuff.

So a modern day "Professional Photographer" is your local gastroenterologist or proctologist with his endoscope camera. Least he makes a livable income with it - and probably a lot more than the consumer camera guys too. And he only charged me $3,000 for some glossy photos too!

 

[PakkyT]

With Olympus jumping ship on consumer cameras, that leaves them with the endoscope stuff.

To be fair, they are more than just endoscopes. While medical is their bread and butter they make optics for a range of industries and tasks. Microscopes, inspection equipment, security devices, etc. for a big variety of industries from medical to mining to security, labs, electronics manufacturing, chemical manufacturing, etc.

 

[gnarlydog australia]

With Olympus jumping ship on consumer cameras, that leaves them with the endoscope stuff.

So a modern day "Professional Photographer" is your local gastroenterologist or proctologist with his endoscope camera. Least he makes a livable income with it - and probably a lot more than the consumer camera guys too. And he only charged me $3,000 for some glossy photos too!

so what do you call a professional that uses an iPhone for his/her images?
I think that only gullible amateurs with an inferiority complex that doubt their craft insist on desiring so called professional cameras to take images of their cats, while real professional will use any tool, regardless of brand/size as long as it does the job ?