"You really should do something with your photography."

I understand. Someone I know when he found out I was a photographer said" Do you make any money from it?" I said "no" and he said "Then why do you do it?" Not everyone can be expected to know about having a passion for something.
 
bmattock said:
I was asked that once. My friend said, "You're so talented. Why aren't you doing something with your photography?"


I told him that I had once .........


...........with my .44 shoved in my mouth, crying over a career that spun out of control and who the hell needs that?

After that, he quit asking me stupid questions.
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Hilariously well put. Your talents are not just restricted to photography. Ooops, now I've gone and done it...
 
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Al Kaplan said:
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In my living room I have a Pepsi can which has a single bullet hole on the near side and two exit holes on the other. The can had shifted slightly on the branch after the first shot but I still managed to go through the same hole at fifty yards with the second shot. Those were the first and last times that I ever fired that gun. That was about 35 years ago.
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In my workroom, which used to be my darkroom, I have two holes in the wall and one in the window. A street fight broke out over 10 years ago. Two cars rolled down my street (a main artery, according to the City of Phoenix) shooting at each other. Turns out it was about some girl at a local (now closed) bar. One car ended up in my next door neighbor's yard, upside down, and the other, ... well, nobody saw the license plate, as we were all in the prone position! That was 15 years ago, and things have quieted down here a lot!

But people still do tell me that I should do something with my photography, so I went to my friend the photo teacher a year ago. I told her "I need to put my work 'out there'." She said "Duh." I asked "How?" and she replied "Enter contests."

So I did. and since then I have been nearly continuously exhibited. I've sold seven prints since then. Last summer, I sold one for $285! I hope to get to bmattock's "hypothetical" place soon. Mortgaging my future seems easy compared to the "mort-mod' world I'm living in these days!

Ok, ok, I still have my day job, but I'm working on this stuff every day after 5, and all weekend!
 
If you're happy with your work then let it be. The world doesn't need another "professional" photographer, trust me. But perhaps think about exhibiting i you're interested in sharing your work
 
I always answer to them one sentence which a friend of mine used to tell me when I asked him the same question few years ago:

Taking good pictures isn't difficult at all; what is really, really difficult is to be paid because of them.
 
Chris101 said:
Then don't do it for money Michael, but sharing is what photos are for. "Getting them out there" is how they are shared.
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Chris,
I agree with you completely. I typed my previous post on an iphone, and it was much more curt than I had intended. I also know that while I usually make a few dollars each year from photography if I depended upon selling images to make the mortgage and put food in my belly things wouldn't be too good.

As for sharing, well that's what folks are getting for Christmas.

--michael
 
Damaso said:
...But perhaps think about exhibiting i you're interested in sharing your work
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Well, that I do actually. But, I have no reason to think I will be succesful with that anytime soon...

So, here's the elaborated statement: I'm considering a career move to teaching photography, digital image processing and web design, and possibly exhibiting and selling the occasional print. But, that surely won't make me a professional photographer, I'll see to that myself.
 
Most of the classmates and professors are telling me to go professional too but I mostly shoot street and I'm not a big fan of the studio. Plus, the competition here in the Philippines when it comes to people offering photographic services is very intense because everyone has a digi cam!

If i'm going to go pro with this, i'd probably try and go for photojournalism and see where it takes me 😀 For now, i'll just enjoy photography as an outlet 🙂
 
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