Jumping from amateur to Pro , how do you know you are good enough?

[crob2go]

I am a retired Verizon worker ready to pursue my dream of becoming a

professional photographer. How much weight should I put on the

ratings that I receive in Photo.Net on whether or not to pursue that

dream? Most of my rating are in the 4's. My 3's and 5's are running

about equal to each other. My interest is in portraits, and wedding

photography.

[medina photography cherry]

Do not put ANY weight on the ratings. Unless you post nude pictures your ratings will never be high. If you have a dream, pursue it, don't wait around for anyones approval- cause you'll never get it.

 

Good luck, have fun.

[james_osborne]

You know that you are good enough to go pro when you sell, and deliver on, your first paid gig.

 

90% of photography (esp Wedding and portraits) is about being able to run your own business.

 

Jim

[cfimages]

Can you offer a package, market yourself, attract clients, provide them with what they want in the timespan agreed upon? Then you're ready.

It's mostly business skills not photographic skills that you need.

 

I took a quick look at your portfolio. Your portrait work is good, with some good "concept" work in it. Your landscape work - some of the colors look a little washed out, and the fireboat image and bridge image both have very tilted horizons. A little more care taken when making the exposure, and some corrections in post-processing will fix these easily.

 

Good luck.

[ellis_vener_photography]

Put absolutely zero weight on any ratings you receive on photo.net or other similar

on-line galleries. You don't know who the people are doing the ratings, what their

qualifications are, and as a general rule other photographers are highly unlikely to be

customers for your photographic services and photographs.<P>

 

 

 

Being a professional, commercial, advertising, stock, wedding, or portrait photographer is

like being any kind of entrepreneur. These are the talents you need to be a successful

professional photographer.<P>Success is dependent on how well you can manage,

market, adapt, and handle the daily stress of running a small business. It helps to have a

fair amount of money sin the bank to finance the venture for several months beyond

buying the hardware, software, and cameras, lights and other technologies. You have to

deal with taxes and financial planning, advertising, targeting your market, etc. it really

helps to be a self starter, have an obsessive (yet paradoxically, low key) personality. <P>If

you are going after assigned photography commissions, you also need to be able to quite

literally see yourself as a product that is for sale; be an outgoing networker; radiate

confidence to others while also being internally insecure; have the willingness and ability

to work 12-16 hour days and be a creative problem solver. You have to deal with both

success and failure gracefully.<P>And then you have to be talented enough to

consistently produce good high quality work (sometimes great work) day in and day

out. And you have to be able to shoulder full responsibility for every move you make:

Becasue the person who hired you is taking a risk, screw up an assignment and you might

be putting the person who hires you in danger of losing their job. You certainly will be

putting your reputation at stake as well, becasue unless you are working on a national or

international level the community of people who hire professional photographers regularly

is actually quite small, even in a very large city.<P>

[conraderb]

if you want to photograph people, you need to learn to use bounce flash as much as possible.

[crob2go]

I like to thank each and everyone you that responded to my question. A special thanks to Ellen Venere for her detailed response and Craig Fergueson for taking the time to look at my work.

[crob2go]

My apology to Ellis Vener for getting name wrong in thankyou note. Thanks again

[ellis_vener_photography]

Ellen thanks you too.