# When did you.....?



## ronlane (Sep 20, 2012)

When do you stop feeling like a beginner?

I KNOW that I still am a beginner and feel like a GWAC a LOT. I have posted and lurked and read and taken notes and practiced and read more on this site and on CiC. It seems that the more I read and actually feel like I learned, the more I realize that I don't know and have to learn. At one time I thought of making a business of my hobby (still do, but know that right now isn't the time) and I still think I can make some money as I continue to grow and improve. However, I see how much of a project this will be just to pay for the equipment that I need or want without even considering a profit.

The second part of this is how long and detailed of a business plan do you have for your photography business? Do you have it all written down and saved somewhere? Is it something you continue to refer to? (I'm not just talking about pricing information here).

I'm at that stage where it all seems doable but is still over-whelming at the same time.


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## ceejtank (Sep 20, 2012)

Once I got paid for my first gig was first time I felt like a pro event photographer... first time I sold my first print also.


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## sovietdoc (Sep 20, 2012)

Never.  Everytime I look at galleries on DPreview I feel like I am in a galaxy far far away from being "good"


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## jhodges10 (Sep 20, 2012)

That's a damn good question Ron mostly because I've wondered the same thing myself. About the time I think I've learned enough to give it a go I find some nugget of info that leads me down a whole different path. Same goes for equipment. Made a huge step from my D60 up to a D800 because I felt like the 60 was holding me back. To some extent it was but with the difference in performance I feel like a beginner all over again. It feels never ending. I'd like to add my own question to this thread, how/where did you make your first sale? I've got ideas on where to start but I don't know if any of them are good so I'd be interested to know how some pros got started. I realize it's a broad topic depending on your field of photography but it'd be interesting to hear from a few different fields anyway.


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## Derrel (Sep 20, 2012)

I stopped feeling like a beginner around 1982, 1983, after about nine years of picture-taking.

I don't have a photo business,per se, these days. I take paying gigs when people ask me to shoot events for them.


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## ronlane (Sep 20, 2012)

Thanks for the responses, please keep them coming.

jhodges, I like your question too. I have made a "sale", actually was paid to take some pictures for a couple. They were happy with the outcome and others have said that they were good, but I wasn't super happy with them. (I guess that's the perfectionist coming out). I would be interested in knowing more about sales of pictures as opposed to sessions for portraits.


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## ronlane (Sep 20, 2012)

Derrel said:


> 1982. After about nine years of picture-taking.




Thanks Derrel, forgive me if I don't start my countdown clock now.  (I'm afraid it may take me longer).


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## SCraig (Sep 20, 2012)

When you can look at some of your shots several years after you took them and tell yourself that you still like them.  Up to then you are still getting better in leaps and bounds.


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## jhodges10 (Sep 20, 2012)

SCraig said:
			
		

> When you can look at some of your shots several years after you took them and tell yourself that you still like them.  Up to then you are still getting better in leaps and bounds.



Then I must be a pro, I've got shots from 6 or 7 years ago that I took with my Kodak Easyshare that I still think look great.


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## pixmedic (Sep 20, 2012)

ronlane said:


> When do you stop feeling like a beginner?



I would say it took me a few weeks after my first time. honestly, I thought it would be easier to really get the hang of, but that's the ignorance and pride of youth there. Thought I would be a pro right off the bat.   I had not yet learned about good location, posing, lighting...all the things that make the experience better than just jumping right in and "doing it".  but hey...I was young, so was she.. we were still kids really. I cant say that our first time together wasn't special..but oh...if I only knew then what I know now.  :mrgreen: 

you WERE talking about sex right?


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## SCraig (Sep 20, 2012)

jhodges10 said:


> * Then I must be a pro*, I've got shots from 6 or 7 years ago that I took with my Kodak Easyshare that I still think look great.


The question wasn't "When Did You Start Feeling Like A Pro" but rather "When Did You Stop Feeling Like A Beginner".


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## KmH (Sep 20, 2012)

The more research and detail included in a business plan, the better. A business plan should be reviewed/updated every 4-6 months. Updates/changes to the plan should be based on a variety of business metrics that are routinely tracked.
Business metrics that need to be closely monitored would include profit and loss, average sale, booking inquiry conversion rates, repeat customer rates, CODB, COGS, and so forth.

Starting a Business | SBA.gov
www.score.org


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## amolitor (Sep 20, 2012)

I really never felt like a beginner. I'd spent enough time looking at photographs before I started taking them that I pretty much felt like I knew what was going on from the day I started shooting. I was, it turns out, wrong. Happily, I had some beginner's luck and shot a couple of really good frames in those first couple of years (negatives sadly lost in a move a few years back, but some prints survive) so I was actually sort of supported in my belief.

Nowadays I am probably overthinking it, and don't get those serendipitous photographs of genius. I make fewer outright bad photographs, though.

Anyways, that's me.

I have never sold a thing, and don't want to. It makes no economic sense for me to sell prints or files, and I rather like being a dilettante.


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## imagemaker46 (Sep 20, 2012)

To be honest I never felt like a beginner, I can't even explain it.  I think being surrounded by cameras from the day I was born in 1955 and always seeing them in the house or in my Dad's hands.  If I had to pick a time when I got to use a camera to shoot my first professional football game in 1969, that was really the beginning.  I still learn things all the time and each assignment is the beginning of something new, with new picture possibilities. I never really thought about it.


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## tirediron (Sep 20, 2012)

It depends on what I'm doing...  in some areas, I still feel like a beginner, in other areas where I have more experience, I don't.  Regardless, as long as you know that you don't know it all, and you're still willing and capable of learning, that's what counts!


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## PixelRabbit (Sep 20, 2012)

I'll let you know when it happens, I'm just sneaking up to a year behind the lens and I still feel like I'm on the steep side of the learning curve. BUT, I love it and it's a rare day when I don't pick up my camera.


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## ronlane (Sep 20, 2012)

Thanks KmH, that is some great help with that part of it.



KmH said:


> The more research and detail included in a business plan, the better. A business plan should be reviewed/updated every 4-6 months. Updates/changes to the plan should be based on a variety of business metrics that are routinely tracked.
> Business metrics that need to be closely monitored would include profit and loss, average sale, booking inquiry conversion rates, repeat customer rates, CODB, COGS, and so forth.
> 
> Starting a Business | SBA.gov
> www.score.org


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## ronlane (Sep 20, 2012)

This is real encouraging coming from a mod.



tirediron said:


> It depends on what I'm doing... in some areas, I still feel like a beginner, in other areas where I have more experience, I don't. Regardless, as long as you know that you don't know it all, and you're still willing and capable of learning, that's what counts!


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## ronlane (Sep 20, 2012)

PixelRabbit,

I am the same way with picking it up everyday. I feel like i have to try something, even if I just delete it.


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## Primoz (Sep 20, 2012)

With me the feeling changes every now and then.... =D

When I take a photo that works out really good or do a photoshoot with consistent beautiful results, I feel very pleased with myself and I don't feel like a beginner anymore. 
But there come days when I can't get a good shot and simply don't know what could I do to make things better (although I already know quite a lot of theory behind a good shot). That's when I fall down to the reality and realise how much more I have to learn... =P

But it's true what has been said before: There's lots of kinds of photography and you can't master them all. You could be an exceptional landscape photographer and in the meantime do a really bad job photographing a... let's say a wedding.

There's actually quite a lot of truth in this graph....


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## sm4him (Sep 20, 2012)

SCraig said:


> jhodges10 said:
> 
> 
> > * Then I must be a pro*, I've got shots from 6 or 7 years ago that I took with my Kodak Easyshare that I still think look great.
> ...



Right, and that is an extremely important distinction, at least in my book. I haven't truly considered myself a *beginner* photographer, in a general sense, since about 1984 (although, see thoughts below quote from tirediron about specific areas where that varies).  
But, while that means I haven't been a beginner in a LOT of years, I have NEVER considered myself good enough to be a "pro"--and by "pro" here, I am not referring to making income from photography, but rather to MY evaluation of the quality and consistency of my work.  Over the years, I've been periodically serious about photography and then had long spells of barely touching it other than taking snapshots of the kiddos. I've taken some really nice, creative, decent-quality shots (given the limitations of my equipment), but I've also taken way too many that I look back and wonder what medication I was on that made me think that was a good photo!

In short, I feel like I have not been a beginner, in the strictest sense, since 1984--but I have languished in a vast, murky, gray quagmire of mediocrity. 
In the last two years, I've decided to change that.  Step one was the equipment--first DSLR bought in August of 2011. Step two is the harder part--finding my way out of the amateur hack status into something *I* would call professional quality.
Progress is being made... 



tirediron said:


> It depends on what I'm doing...  in some areas, I still feel like a beginner, in other areas where I have more experience, I don't.  Regardless, as long as you know that you don't know it all, and you're still willing and capable of learning, that's what counts!



^THIS. I should have just not even bothered with the rest of my comment.  I'm not a "beginner" at photography in a general sense--but when I got the DSLR, I had to begin all over in a sense (especially since it'd been years since I'd picked up the film SLR).  HDR? Total novice here. Sports? Just starting...

I think the fact that there seems to always be more to learn, more to explore, more to experiment with, is what makes photography FUN for me.


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## SCraig (Sep 20, 2012)

sm4him said:


> SCraig said:
> 
> 
> > The question wasn't "When Did You Start Feeling Like A Pro" but rather "When Did You Stop Feeling Like A Beginner".
> ...



I agree and that's why I pointed it out.

There are many experienced photographers, well past the "Beginner" stage that have no inclination to pursue a career in photography, however their abilities are, in many cases, most assuredly commensurate with many professional photographers.  There are also many professional photographers who have decided a career in photography isn't for them and reverted to amateur status.  There are also a HUGE number of self-proclaimed "Professional" photographers who have not yet even reached the "Beginner" stage and barely even know which end of a camera to point at the subject.  And then there is a dwindling number of truly professional, capable, and experienced "Professional" photographers.

There is no actual distinction between "Beginner" photographers and "Professional" photographers any longer.  As long as a person with no experience and no abilities can hang up a shingle and call themselves a "Professional Photographer" then the term has no meaning to me.

I have a lot of respect for truly Professional Photographers (no sarcastic quotation marks on that one).  They have the knowledge, the ability, the experience, and the professionalism to provide what their client expects and live up to their commitments, however they are being overshadowed by the fakes.  All you have to do is look around this forum for a little while to see plenty of examples of both.


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## fotomumma09 (Sep 20, 2012)

I started with a film slr 15 years ago. A year ago I decided to start shooting in manual with my DSLR. I have devoted countless hours in learning exposure and lighting and feel that I have just barely scratched the surface. IMO you are no longer a beginner when you can shoot well composed shots in almost any situation confidently.


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## jhodges10 (Sep 20, 2012)

SCraig said:
			
		

> The question wasn't "When Did You Start Feeling Like A Pro" but rather "When Did You Stop Feeling Like A Beginner".



Check and mate, well played sir. I would like to point out the  at the end of that post. That being said your distinction gives me some hope. I wouldn't call myself a beginner by any means but I certainly have plenty of room to grow


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## MLeeK (Sep 20, 2012)

Well, considering I can use the camera to create the image in my mind in any situation. I guess I am not a beginner. Does that mean I'm done learning? OH HELL NO. I haven't scratched the surface.


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## jhodges10 (Sep 20, 2012)

Primoz said:
			
		

> With me the feeling changes every now and then.... =D
> 
> When I take a photo that works out really good or do a photoshoot with consistent beautiful results, I feel very pleased with myself and I don't feel like a beginner anymore.
> But there come days when I can't get a good shot and simply don't know what could I do to make things better (although I already know quite a lot of theory behind a good shot). That's when I fall down to the reality and realise how much more I have to learn... =P
> ...



I can't decide if I'm on the upswing or I've taken the giant plunge to nothingness. I haven't done any HDR yet and I'm just getting ready to buy Photoshop so I guess I'm on the upswing preparing for my drop into the abyss. Crap!


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## SCraig (Sep 20, 2012)

jhodges10 said:


> Check and mate, well played sir. I would like to point out the  at the end of that post. That being said your distinction gives me some hope. I wouldn't call myself a beginner by any means but I certainly have plenty of room to grow



To be honest, no I didn't notice the smiley at the end.  My bad and I apologize.  It's been one of those days.

There is hope for all of us.  Well, all except those who are convinced they already know everything there is to know.  I'm not a beginner either and I hope I never stop learning.


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## bratkinson (Sep 21, 2012)

Perhaps I'll stop feeling like a beginner when I keep more pictures than I delete.  

I thought I had a pretty good 'command' of my camera until a poorly lit wedding of my ex-stepdaughter came along.  Man, did I get a comeuppance!  Good thing I wasn't one of the paid pros that were there.  Their shots were fantastic.  Mine were mostly trash.

And this coming from one who's been shooting on and off since the '60s!


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## 12sndsgood (Sep 21, 2012)

I'm going to try and stay a beginner for as long as I can. and continue to throw myself into new areas that i'm new at. I have a feeling the day I decide im a "professional" (by my own standads) is the day i stop going out and trying to learn something new. and once that happens it's probably time to set the camera down.


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## ronlane (Sep 21, 2012)

12sndsgood said:


> I'm going to try and stay a beginner for as long as I can. and continue to throw myself into new areas that i'm new at. I have a feeling the day I decide im a "professional" (by my own standads) is the day i stop going out and trying to learn something new. and once that happens it's probably time to set the camera down.



I like that attitude about learning something new, 12.


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## KenC (Sep 21, 2012)

There was a thread on here a few months ago (which I'm too lazy to search for) with a link to an article which had I think five or six levels of photography, based on types of mistakes made, overall approach, etc.  Many who responded to this classified themselves and some of us felt that we were in two or three different levels with regard to different things.  So, you may find that you have progressed out of "beginner" in some ways but not in others, and there are few people who never have any experience that would be associated with being a beginner.


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