Proffessional vs. Amateur

There are a lot of rules for considering yourself a proffesional.  I have learned this through photography classes, through blogs, through photog boards.  There are rules.  Every photographer has a set of rules to hold themselves by, or hold others by.  For me, I hold myself to a high standard.  I know im still learning, so I consider myself to be a student.  I tell clients this, when they contact me.  I am still learning my personal style, and still learning techniques used by the pros.

They say the difference between an amateur and a proffesional is 10,000 images.  Well, I can say with certainty, I have taken over 10,000 images.  And if you look at my first images, and my images now. There is a huge difference! But it has very little to do with the amount of images you have taken.  That little auto trigger on your camera, can be your enemy.  Its manual mode or nothing for me.  You have to know how to adjust your white balance, your apperature, your shutter speed.  You cant rely on your camera to do it all for you.  You can read the light and atmosphere better than a computer.  My camera does some of the work for me, but if you dont know how to adjust those manual modes, you will never get any better.  This is a lesson I have learned very well in the past few weeks.  When I finally took my camera out of auto, and braved the world of manual shooting!  and its been worth the adventure! 


Editing is another big thing.  Any person with a digicam sitting at home can use picnic, or photobucket to put ugly colored vignettes, and weird borders on their pictures.  But if you dont know how to use your photo editing software to adjust colors, white balance, lightness, darkness, saturation, lumination, or masking.  Your photography will never be anything more than your average mom, siting at home taking pictures of her children.  Which isnt a bad thing.  I think everyone should own a camera and take pictures of life around them.  But its what differentiates a Pro from an Amateur. 

Now I have read several other blogs, and articles about this same subject matter. and to be honest, when I first started, I took offense.  How dare these photographers get up on their high horse and think they are better than anyone else.  but truth of the matter is, they are better than everyone else.  Simply because they know how to adjust their cameras, they know how to adjust in post editing.  With alot of hard work, and the drive to never stop learning.. I know I will be a proffesional one day.  By MY STANDARDS.