# What can you do as a professional photographer ?? Degrees?



## Jpsweeney94 (Aug 29, 2014)

So I'm thinking of going into photography after my current commitment. Im I guess what you could say an amateur right now. I have had a canon xsi for a few years now and has largely been a hobby that hasn't seen much use/time lately. So what degrees are there for it? Is it 4 year school degree kind of thing? Or kind of like EMT where it's a special kind of schooling. Also what can you do as a career? I wouldn't really be into the whole shooting weddings or doing portraits for senior pictures or something like that. What else is there? I'd rather do stuff like marketing, sports, magazines, etc.. Don't care much about the money, as long as I can live hahah...Thanks for the help!


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## robbins.photo (Aug 29, 2014)

My advice? Spend time practicing the phrase, "Would you like fries with that?"


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## KmH (Aug 29, 2014)

It gets harder by the day to make a living as a photographer. Staff photographers jobs pretty much no longer exist.
Chicago Sun-Times lays off photo staff - Chicago Tribune

National Geographic only hires freelancers, that have a degree is a field other than photography.
Career FAQs -- National Geographic


> Our editors and photographers agree that it is important to complete a degree in a discipline other than photography. Freelancers usually come to us with at least five years of photojournalism experience or with specializations such as wildlife, underwater, nature, or aerial photography. We seek balance and an eclectic blend of interests, abilities, and photographic styles in the freelancers we hire.



Like the member wanting to sell a disc of commercial food photos for $400, many photographers today price photographs as a commodity.

Next something like 85% of all the photos that sell have people in the photos and are bought by the people in the photos. That's why so many photographers do retail type photography - weddings and portraits - rather than commercial photography.

The Internet and the social sharing of literally billions and billions of photos is slowly killing the commercial; photography market also. 

The skill set you most need if you want to make money doing photography is business skills - marketing, promotion, salesmanship, accounting, advertising,


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## imagemaker46 (Aug 30, 2014)

Good luck with what ever you end up making a good living at, it won't be in photography.


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## fotomonkey (Sep 2, 2014)

There is great truth in these posts.

Several years ago when shooting youth sports I noticed it was really getting tough. Not only were parents shooting with the same (or better) gear (my primary rig was a $3500 Nikon D2H and 70-200/2.8) but they were competing against me. I recall hearing a soccer mom telling the rest of the team parents "Don't worry about buying his pictures. I'll just burn you a CD of mine." Now one of the things we know as photographers is that it isn't the gear that makes a good image so if all things are equal then you have to be able to do something to set yourself apart. I just couldn't figure out what that was. I saw too many times that quality didn't matter. I literally saw people ooing and ahhing over images that were so out of focus the only way you'd know it was your kid was by the barely discernible jersey number. So having good gear and the skill to use it didn't mean anything when it came to paying vs getting it for free.

There was still money to be made in team & individual stuff but while it makes money it didn't interest me. Everybody with a DSLR is your competition now because they all think they're a professional. Sadly, the market seems to agree. I don't think you can swing a dead cat without hitting a professional photographer.


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## pthrift (Sep 2, 2014)

fotomonkey said:


> ...I don't think you can swing a dead cat without hitting a professional photographer.




Quote of the day.  



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4; probably while slacking off at work


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## murphydphoto (Oct 9, 2014)

I agree with all of the above 
not the best time to try and make a career out of photography


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## Gary A. (Oct 9, 2014)

Generally, most/all of the major news organization require a degree in journalism (or equal like Communications) as a prerequisite for hiring. (Or you have to put in a ton of years working your way up from small market to medium market to large.)

If you desire to open up your own shoppe, then expertise in business and marketing will be as beneficial or even more beneficial than being a good photographer.  If you desire to be a photojournalist, it is more important for you to be a journalist first and a photog second.


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## spacefuzz (Oct 9, 2014)

You just missed the Telluride Photo Festival, had lots of editors and pro photographers discussing the state of the business.  Its still a multi-billion dollar industry.

Check out www.tandemstock.com for examples of the level of photography you would need to achieve in order to be successful.  You don't need a photography degree to get there, I would actually recommend business or marketing.

Today if you have 3-5k stock photos and shoot assignments for magazines / businesses you can make a comfortable living if you don't live somewhere expensive.


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## jsecordphoto (Oct 9, 2014)

Start practicing panhandling... The people with creative signs seem to do well


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## Nevermore1 (Oct 9, 2014)

Lots of good advice here.  I'm no pro but my friends who I don't get to see often are always asking me if I am when I post my pictures for friends to see.  I think they ask because everyone these days claims to be a pro photographer.  When they ask I respond with "nope, just been playing around with it for the past 20 years".  I don't think I completely suck but most certainly don't consider myself anywhere near pro level.


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## Mr. Innuendo (Oct 15, 2014)

When I started up my photography business, I was told "It's probably a bad idea. You won't be able to make a living as a photographer".

Yet, here I am, years later, making a living (and a comfortable one) being a photographer.

Don't let the naysayers sway you. If you want to do it, do it. You probably won't be paying the rent with it right away, but you can in time.

As for schools and degrees, I'd say they're over-rated. I've never once had a client ask me where I went to school, or what kind of degree I have. All they want to know is that I'm able to deliver what they want.

Do that consistently and you'll be okay.


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## minicoop1985 (Oct 16, 2014)

If you're married, don't plan on being a single income family. Well, actually, expect that, but the other way around.  Anyway, there's money to be found. You just have to find something different that your area lacks. If it's chock full of wedding/portrait shooters, that's prooooooooobably not the area to focus on. Or if there's 300 newborn photographers, that's again proooooooooooobably not the area to focus on. See a pattern here? If there's 2 horribly overworked commercial photographers in your area, see if you can relieve some of their pressures. If there's one wedding photographer in an area of 80,000 people, that might be a good avenue to pursue. If there's one photographer in an area of 4,000, well, maybe it's a good idea to move.


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## Vince.1551 (Oct 16, 2014)

Don't just be a professional photographer. Be an outstanding professional photographer. That said it's similar to running a business. Think think and continue thinking of how to make the best of it...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## shmne (Oct 27, 2014)

Photography will continue to dwindle as technology makes it more and more of a commodity. What arts like painting and illustration have always been, will be more like what photography becomes.

I'm a creative director for a small company and we don't have a staff illustrator. Nor do we have a staff painter, photographer, videographer, motionographer, php developer...etc...etc...etc. I literally could not create enough work for any of those positions on a daily basis as we rarely if ever need the skills, and what one person could do as a full time employee is leaps and bounds less than what individual contractors can do. What does this mean? You probably won't be finding a full time photography job any time soon. At least not one that pays very well.

This means you'll be working for yourself, and any time someone works for them self they better be a good entrepreneur otherwise their business will not make it. This means the first thing I suggest is become a professional in business, not photography. You'll need to know marketing, law, and every aspect of owning a business. In the beginning photography will be the last thing you do as a result of building up a good business, eventually that starts to flip (where you get to focus more on the photography and hire people to manage the business).

This is a bit cut and dry, granted.

Commercial photography is a great place to start, and I don't mean product photography. I mean marketing and advertising, or concept photography. Things that make people question how you shot it, or make them laugh at the hilarity of a photo, make them question existence, etc.

Photographers that sell their photos will soon be falling behind (and many already are).

The successful photographers are selling their creativity and their brand. This is the same for most businesses and one that is quickly snuffing out the old mindset.


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## Forkie (Oct 28, 2014)

I disagree with most of the people above me and think photography is still a great industry to get into and as long as you're doing a better job than the iPhone crew, and market yourself well, you can make a good living from it.

I would question why you need a degree to do it though.  How are your photos now?  How will a degree make your photos better?  If you already have an eye, no degree will make your eye better.  If you don't have an eye, will university give that to you or will it just tell you which buttons to press on the camera?

I would probably advise a business qualification over a photography one unless the genre of photography you want to go into specifically requires a degree. But if you're going to be working for yourself, aren't you the one who decides what qualifications you need?!

I've never had any formal training, and I've never really known what I want to do with it until the last year or so.  Now I'm building my portfolio with freebies for people I know in the industry I'm interested in and they will help put my name and brand about, some time next year I might take a business course and then hopefully go it alone.

As Shme said, these days it is about your creativity and your brand.  If shooting portraits, you need to sell not only the finished product, but the experience of having professional photos done and create photos nobody else has.  A family of four sat in incremental steps on a brown mottled fabric backdrop isn't going to cut it in the 21st century.  People want something more interesting and unique that nobody else has got.  That is what people pay money for.


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