What do you do for a living?

After 8 years with a major logistical company (one of the few global players) and after a few extremely stressy months (moving an activity to a new location, firing people, hiring and training new staff,...) I decided it was time for a change. The past 8 months I stayed home and took care of the kids and the household. Three weeks ago I came to an agreement with my employer to end our contract and tomorrow I start a new parttime (19 hrs/week) job with a scientific medical society. I'll be working on the layout of their publications and on the maintenance of their website.
I realized that the happiness of the shareholders of my former employer is not as important to me as the happiness of the shareholders of my life.

Wim
 
What I Do.

What I Do.

I am a professional photographer specializing in Commercial, Industrial and Advertising photography. I have had a studio for almost 30 years, and I shoot with film (8x10 to 35mm) and digital. My rangefinder pursuits are primarily for my personal photography.
 
Wim, you've got the old priorities lined up properly. My respects, sir.

As for me, a maverick life. Out of the Navy I went to college in Bakersfield during the day and worked as a deputy sheriff at night (California). Then I moved to San Diego, finished a degree in clinical psychology, couldn't find a job, and worked again in the cop shop, this time as a detective sergeant along the California Mexico border. Went back to school, got an MA in Creative Writing and worked as a college professor until 1996, when I retired. During summers before retiring I worked as a freelance photojournalist in Central America (got too scary), smuggled cars into Costa Rica (not nearly as scary), and lived one whole summer in Guanajuato, GTO, Mexico, where I taught a course in American short fiction (in Engish) to students studying to become high school teachers of English-as-a-foreign-language.

During all of this I always took pictures and had my own darkroom. Now I can do whatever I want, and what I do now is, well, take pictures and write.

I have a few commercial photo clients, and I write articles , fiction, and a twice monthly humor column for an internet magazine. On the side I teach Introduction to Black & White Film Photography at a nearby college. Turns out the vast majority of the population don't know how to do that anymore, so B&W FILM photography is rapidly (at least for young college students) becoming an arcane and esoteric art.

And my latest column is about precisely this experience. If you've nothing to do, try www.bisbeemarquee.com/ look for my name under columns. The piece is entitled "The Class."

So at this stage of my life I do whatever's fun. If it ain't fun, I ain't there.

Ted
 
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What do I do for a living? Well let's see I spent 8 years working on a 4 year degree at the University of Iowa. I never did let my class studies interfere with my education. I have done many things, Insurance sales for a few years, route sales for a bread company, in home sales of solar water heaters in Phoenix, Az, I worked as a High Scaler removing boulders from the cliffs along the hiway from Globe to Apache Junction, I worked in real estate development building strip shopping malls, managed a one-hour photo lab, I was a mill bench chemist for a large agri company here in Iowa, worked as a QC in soda bottling plant, have done more wedding photography than I really wanted too, (but it helped me buy a lot of my toys), I am currently a route sales person for well known (in the states) chip company. I also pick up soda cans from the road side and re-cycle them for a nickel a piece, after New Year's Eve and Prom nights I can make enough to buy a Zorki, or Kiev, or ????

Wayne
 
I'm a partially-burned out software engineer writing mindless and tedious software, using photography and
3D graphics and animation as a creative outlet to keep myself from going entirely insane.
 
I work at the National Cycling Centre, the premier indoor velodrome in the UK. Coach riders, teach coaches and shuffle bits of paper around in between taking photographs when I can - mainly using old cameras [Gevabox, Retinette etc].
 
Applied Statistician and chaos theorist.

After a managerial career with a software company recently been taken over by "Larry" I have returned to my original trait bein a Applied Statistician and chaos theorist. I work mainly for political PR agencies in Austria and Germany. On average I do this (freelance) for 50% of my time, for the rest I am a professional artist of life and living, and living in the Salzburg area this is not a too hard a thing to be reall good at.
 
I am an Art Director/Graphic Designer specializing in Multimedia for Web and presentations.

I started in 1976 as a grunt/production artist at a notorious ad agency in Washington, DC. I later moved into the publishing world at Time-Life Books after they moved to Alexandria, VA (just outside of DC). My interest in photography was driven while at Time-Life, as I was one of several layout artists that helped produce the Time-Life Library of Photography. Stayed there for 16 years and managed to attain the Senior Art Director title.

I opted-out at the end of my 16th year to become a contractor which I lived through until 1998. I then joined an IT company in Fairfax, VA as a Web Designer. Finally layed off in May 2004.

Currently freelancing in San Diego, CA and seeking full time employment here. My grey hairs and last salary scare people in SoCal.

My stuff... here- http://www.culturesnag.com/RherndonPortfolio.htm
 
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Book editor for a publisher specializing in history of the American West. Former newspaper reporter, then photographer, then editor-columnist, then managing editor. Oh yeah. I had a career as a salesman for staniless steel "waterless cookware" that lasted for three days in 1965.
 
Actually in the Industry!

Actually in the Industry!

I started managing the photo retail and photo lab for a large sporting goods company here in Colorado in the early 80's. Over the decades I've sold and handled most of the photo products currently out there. The Digital Revolution closed a large amount of independent photo stores around the country, including ours. Our photo lab continues on though. I guess I've become nostalgic for photography with a heart. Ive abandoned most of my "electronic" cameras for basic manual styles. Old Nikons, Old Voits, a neato widelux and my Mamiya 7II is all I've got left. I dabble enough in the current crop of cameras to be able to at least have some sort of inkling to converse with customers on the digital front, but don't really care to join them.
 
ParsonsPhoto said:
I started managing the photo retail and photo lab for a large sporting goods company here in Colorado in the early 80's. Over the decades I've sold and handled most of the photo products currently out there. The Digital Revolution closed a large amount of independent photo stores around the country, including ours. Our photo lab continues on though. I guess I've become nostalgic for photography with a heart. Ive abandoned most of my "electronic" cameras for basic manual styles. Old Nikons, Old Voits, a neato widelux and my Mamiya 7II is all I've got left. I dabble enough in the current crop of cameras to be able to at least have some sort of inkling to converse with customers on the digital front, but don't really care to join them.
Click to expand...

I grew up in Denver in the 70's and 80's. Well, by the time the 80's rolled around, I was in the Marines and gone. But I remember the labs at Waxman downtown, Gart Brothers, and Foss in Golden (I graduated from Golden Sr High in '79).

It wasn't just the digital camera revolution and all the stuff shifting to Best Buy. It was also Wolf or whomever they are buying all the small stores and chains and shutting them down so they could open a kiosk in the mall selling crap.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
It's an old thread, but I hope you won't mind if I join in...

I'm a conregational youth worker, or a youth paster if you're on the other side of the Atlantic, for the last 5-ish years and for the next three months. What happens then, I do not yet know :-/ Youth work is a big part of me, but I would love a slightly different, more strategic/development-focussed role.

I do a lot of web development and site-building on the side, unpaid, for charities, churches and other non-profits, often providing hosting services and support alongside.

I don't want to be a pro photographer, but I'd like to sell a print here or there 🙂 I've done a fair amount of work shooting local bands for websites/CD covers/posters and so on, but again unpaid - I work with the kind of bands who have no money at all. That's one aspect of photography I'd love to give more time to.
 
I know too that this one is a very old thread, but...
I´m an Electronics Technician of 52 y.o. having spent the past 35 years hard working almost on everything: from a former employee of tha local GM branch in the seventies to a Sales Resp. & Aplication Engineer for a Danish maker of AC motor drives, to a simple electronic components seller at a shop counter...and at last, Production Logistics Manager at a small electronics facility specialized in anti fraud / security devices for banking operations. Perhaps this last is the best job I ever had, and for our standards very well payed. Because of this job I stay all day long in front of the computer, looking for supplies. This way I chat with my wife, and enjoy this site. Later at home, I speak to my wife and keep track of the forum.
I started in this addiction since I was 7 y.o. with my dad´s foldable Wirgin 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 . Then we both shifted to a Voigtländer Vitomatic IIb. For a long while, I´ve been using SLRs, but one day I suddednly decided to do something different from what I´ve been used to do: to buy non functional cameras, restore them, and bring´em back to life, just to be part of a collection of fully functional and usable cameras. The RFs then came in again! . I do not want to become a pro photograher as it will kill (I think) the pleasure of getting pictures. I still develop and print (with an optical enlarger) all my B&W shooting. Colour negs are for the holydays only or family gatherings. Sometimes I make B&W prints from them also.
I´m currently living in Buenos Aires, but as my job is driving me bored and really tired I´ve started thinking of a change: I will leave electronics just for a hobby targeted to photography, and to move to another city on the beach. I´ll keep taking pictures and in fact I´ll keep on like a retired, doing what I really want to do: fishing, taking pictures, repairing old cameras, doing my B&W darkroom, and enjoying life all the way. I guess It´s time to!
Ernesto J. L´Episcopo
 
I feel like such a bum now :bang:

I work for a charity, collecting donations door-to-door... terrible job, terrible pay. If anything better comes along I'll take it!

At least I'm outdoors with my camera whenever I'm working! 😀
 
I'm a chemist. When I was a single, I bought CD and wasted tons of money for nothing. But, to put them in perspective, I could end up with a Nikon system if I were really duped at that time. In stead, I bought a P/S nikon. When it's lost, I bought Nikon N70 with sigma 28-200. Life was tough before I got a real job. By the time when I was really insterested in camera, I was married. With a bit constraint, I still managed to build kiev MF and kiev range finder system. My wife thinks that I'm out of control and has issued some serious edict. With some pocket cash (I saved for 2 months, cash flow is really low now), I bought 2 kieves for part to my current kieves and was dismayed to find that they were repairable. I need to buy shutter ribbons agains!! I'm just over 41.

Pangkievrange
 
hello all,

i consider myself a writer but work i considered "real" seldom get paid for;

i make do with the expences doing tedious tasks as a reasearch assistant, language tutor and translator

cheers!

lee
 
Well I started as a Navy SEAL after high school and had a lovely vacation in sunny SE Asia. When I got out I worked as a dynamite blaster for an oil exploration company. Then when the oil bust came in the '80's I went to work as a carpenter. For the last 10 years I have owned my own small remodeling/new construction company. I am also a professional wedding/portrait shooter on wknds and do wildlife/ nature for fun. I am also the staff photographer for an exotic , I bet you thought I was going to say dancer, game ranch and the sports photographer for the local paper
 
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