Becoming a professional snapper
You want to be a hot-shot snapper, and turn your hobby into a job, do you? It’s a tough business to get into, but with a bit of knowledge, a little bit of skill and a lot of patience, it’s entirely possible to get photos in print in magazines and newspapers, and get paid for it!
Editors receive many photos every day and very few ever get published. You can save them and yourself some time by following the simple tips collected below.
First of all you need to assess if the picture is of national or local importance. An armed robbery with bodies lying all over the place and crashed police cars etc. would be of national importance but a photograph of a bus having smashed through somebody’s garden wall will probably only be of interest to your local paper. If in any doubt phone the picture desk and ask if they would be interested in the image.
(from Pixalo)
Employers want people with strong imaginations and technical skills in photography. The most qualified individuals have degrees in photography or journalism. Portrait and freelance photographers must have technical aptitude as achieved through some kind of training.
(from Career Overview.com)
Being a photographer can mean many different things. Anyone who picks up a camera and clicks the shutter is a photographer of sorts. More seriously, for most of us a photographer is someone who engages a considerable proportion of their life in photography. Most of the time people want to know how they can make a career out of something that at the moment is just an interest.
Many of us dream of becoming rich and famous, of having our work shown in great art galleries, splashed across the leading fashion magazines and in large on the newspaper front pages. While it is always a possibility that photography will make us a celebrity, reality tends to be more mundane.
(from the excellent, in-depth How to become a photographer, from About.com)
As digital cameras become more and more popular, many readers and photographers are starting to submit their images to magazines for possible publications in digital format. It’s only very recently that many magazines have actually started to accept digital images. One of the main reasons for this is not for the lack of well composed and news worth images, but for the fact that digital cameras in the past didn’t have enough resolution and level of detail to reproduce well in a magazine. In fact, many excellent digital pictures have been rejected because of this simple reason. In addition, how digital pictures were sent to the magazine by photographers was another reason their pictures didn’t appear in print. Poorly printed digital images, being supplied in the wrong format and those sent in by email were the main culprits.
(from How to submit digital pictures by Ephotozine)
If you’re interested in a lot more info, How to become a professional photographer by Danny Steyn.
Finally, if you use DeviantArt, add Chris Weeks to your watch list. The man’s a prolific photographer (and also the guy pictured in the illustration picture of this post), and frequently writes about his work on his DA blog. You may also want to have a read of A Day in the Life of a Professional Photographer, over on Pixalo.
Good luck in your new career :)
My day job, if it can be called that, is being a writer. I've got one book out there so far and it's awesome, so go ahead and buy a copy! It's available from 
In front of you, five hyperactive men with guitars, drums, and microphones. Behind you, five thousand fans. In your hands, a camera... You're going to need more than just a little bit of good luck to pull this one off. That's where this book comes in.
Take a Canon EOS 450D. Attach a Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. Hit the streets of London. See what happens.
Insights, suggestions and comments
Prolly best to link to Chris’ personal blog, rather than his dA one.. his personal one is faaaar more interesting.
http://barbecuediguana.com/
Another tip – find yourself a niche market and get as much experience in it as possible. For me it was, of all things, dog shows. This progressed to pet photography and now jewellery photography… So on and so forth. I no longer wish to become a professional now that I’ve had the experience of being semi-prof. But I definitely recommend finding yourself a niche and using it to your advantage.
Good tips – and I love Chris Weeks’ work!
Hey,
I take it you aked chris could you use that pic :)
Yeah chris is a good guy and an insanely good shooter.
Shows you that you gonna gotta be some D2X toting papparazzo to get by in the photo index.
Leica MP and Noctiluct is all ya need baby :)
Hi, I am pondering the idea of beginning a small photography business, shooting corporate events as my mainstay. I have picked out the equiptment I want to use, but now I am wondering if anyone can tell me how I go about copywriting the name I wish to use for my company name. And of course it goes without saying that there are many other challenges involved in doing something like this, so any advice given, will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Gary H.
i am only 11 years old and want to be a photographer and chris has some really good tips!!
:)
Great information! Thanks for sharing your photography insights.
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