Is photography really hard? or is it really easy?

<p>A lot of people think photography is easy. I had people at my day-job pull out their point and shoot or iPhones and brag how they never went to school, or took any courses in Photography. With today's auto-everything cameras photography is pretty easy at least easier than it once was.</p>

<p>What these people don't take into consideration is the <strong>consistency factor</strong>. Can you consistently take pictures that will sell or go on a wall ? Then there are the hundreds of little details that you need to remember that when combined can make things difficult especially when shooting retail. </p>

<p>For me the hard thing about photography has very little to do with the camera. Cameras have changed a lot in the 70 years I've been doing this. The hardest thing is conceiving of the vision you are seeking to produce, then figuring how to do it with the hardware (and now software) you have at hand. </p>

<p>both</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Aeronautical engineering is difficult!<br>

</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It is, but I suspect that there are some that find it easier than art. <br>

<br>

Being a commercially successful artist is not easy. For most types of art, it takes a lot of work, a lot of practice, to get really good. <br>

<br>

There is the story about while Michael Crichton became an MD. Compare the number of successful doctors to the number of successful best selling book authors. <br>

<br>

It is easy to become a photographer, but not so easy to become a really really good one.</p>

<p>Whether a pursuit is easy or hard has more to do with your standards than with the discipline being pursued.</p>

<p>It's easy. All you need is a "good camera" and you are a photographer. Helps if you have a "good eye" only need one, and pitchers will "come out" good. </p>

<p>Basic exposure and focusing are childishly simple. Learning to see lighting effects is no easier than it was 100 years ago, although the lighting equipment is lighter and easier to manipulate. Composition is also no easier. Portability is vastly better these days (i-phones, etc.). Vastly more difficult is making a living as a professional photographer - photography today is essentially "just" another app, to make a living you need skills in stills AND video AND graphic design AND website authoring, and programming skills won't hurt either! Notwithstanding this, it is positive that photography has been democratised and is now accessible to so many people. Making a personal statement (in itself a good thing) is easier than ever before, getting someone to look at it was never harder!</p>

"Taking good pictures is easy. Making very good pictures is difficult. Making great pictures is almost impossible." - Constantine Manos, Magnum Photos

I think they're similar in that anyone can do simple cooking or simple photography without much training or sophisticated

equipment. Shooting something that someone would want to look at (or eat for cooking) is the challenge. Like chess they

are easy to learn but hard to do well. Both will continue to improve over a whole lifetime.

<p>Both.</p>