For Those Thinking About Becoming A Professional Photographer

This blog is intended to be helpful to anyone thinking about entering the wild world of professional photography, so if I come across as a little rough please understand I'm not trying to talk you out of entering, I just want you to see things how they are likely to be.

The digital camera seems to be turning everyone in to a pro. While there are advantages to digital over film, it's not all a dream world. First thing is learning to operate a professional quality digital camera is more involved than film. With film you loaded the camera, set the ISO took the images and then sent the film to a professional lab. It was the job of the LAB to make everything look great. With digital there needs to be more care taken with exposure and white balance. The camera setting "P" doesn't not stand for professional. Most of the time "P" will get good images, but if you don't know more about photography than "P" you will miss getting the really great images that are likely to sell. If you buy any of the semi-pro or pro cameras you need to buy the pro grade lenses. Nikon, Canon and Sony are probably the tops brands. A P&S camera is not suitable for pro work. They might be able to be a backup camera. If you are a pro you will have backup equipment. Please remember that I love this profession and anyone that is out there working as a pro needs to be prepared for equipment failure and all other Murphy Law events. A through understanding about lens selection and settings comes with being a pro. The next big issue is to shoot RAW or JPG. Each has certain advantages and disadvantages. To get to the most out of your camera I think you should shoot RAW for most jobs. If you always get the perfect image then just shoot in JPG. (If all your images are perfect you need to get some training so that you learn what to look for that is wrong with your images)

FLASH: The pro-quality flash is a very complex piece of equipment. It is very easy to slid the flash on the hot shoe and fire away, but remember you are a pro and need to know about bounce flash, having someone operate a second flash to assist the exposure. As with all things, don't try to go cheap when buying your flashes. For studio strobes I think they are easier to use, because you normally have more control. Camera settings don't change as often so learning posing becomes the primary concern.

COMPUTERS: Yes more than one, because they fail all to often. The debate of which platform to choose is going to continue for a long time. The PC's are cheaper to purchase and more software is available, the MAC's cost more and some of your favorite software may not be available, but the MAC is probably the computer for Photoshop and all the other softwares that photographers use. While a quailty PC will cost $1500 to $3000 the MAC will start at $3000. The needed software will add at least a $1000-$3000. But the monitor also needs to be a pro quality unit. Pro monitors start at $1000. A calibration unit will add about $600 to your expenses. You have to have your monitor calibrated to see what each change to the image is doing and to receive prints from the pro lag that match what you see on screen.

I can see that this blog is going to be very long, so this is the end of chapter 1.
There is educational material in many different forms for photographers, videos, workshops and sometimes some hands on help. So if you don't understand what I am writing about there is learning aides at hand.

Bill Whitlock