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The Benefits of Hobby
May 27th, 2008
When I was 16 I wanted to be a professional photographer, shoot for the yellow rectangle, all that. I think in part because I felt like I wouldn’t be a real photographer unless I was making a living from it. Then something clicked and I think one of the reasons I dodged doing this professionally for many years was because I didn’t want the demands of vocation to steal the joy from something I loved so much. But I was still dogged by words like “amateur” and “hobbyist,” if only because it felt like I was being defined by what I wasn’t – a “professional.”
Pursuing your vision and loving your craft has precisely nothing to do with how you make your living. The real photographer is the one who shoots what she loves and is committed to learning her craft well. Money often just makes it unnecessarily complicated.
In fact, abstaining from career photography can have advantages, and as a follow-up to yesterday’s post about “going pro,” I wanted to add a little perspective to the would-be converts. Abstaining from career photography:
Can mean having a day job to fund the gear you want. Pros are often forced to spend their money on necessities: marketing materials instead of the 14/2.8L lens they want. The hobbyist gets the cool lens, the pro gets postcards.
Can mean the flexibility to shoot what you want to shoot without the demands of clients hemming in your artistic impulses.
Can mean being free of the pressure to create on demand.
Can mean the freedom to pursue the art of your vision without commercial concerns or distractions. Ideally a working photographer finds/makes the time for personal projects she is passionate about; it just doesn’t always work out that way.
Can mean the freedom to love your images without feeling like they’re only truly good photographs if someone buys them. Allowing your vision to be validated only by dollars is a terrible trap.
In the best-case scenario, doing this for a living is as good as doing it as a hobby. Sometimes more so. Doing this for a living can mean doing it more, pressing deeper into the art simply from necessity, and being able to write off some cool gear. I love doing this and making a living at it, right now I wouldn’t change that for anything. But the notion that you aren’t a real photographer until people are paying you is rubbish. Vincent Van Gogh didn’t sell any of his work during his lifetime. Sure, he went crazy and lopped an ear off, but he was incontrovertibly an artist.
So if “going pro” allows you to both make a living and pursue your vision – go for it. If remaining a hobbyist allows you to pursue your vision without the pitfalls of making it your trade, go for it. Either way, serve your vision with passion. Shoot what you love, even if it costs you (and it will!), that’s when you’re a real photographer.
I’ve been subscribing to your blog for quite some time now and while I enjoy all of your posts, this one really struck a chord with me. There is way too much emphasis in our industry on who is ‘pro’ and who is ‘amateur.’ The images should speak for themselves, without any labels. Cheers!
What I’d really like is a patron. Why are there no more patrons?
Thank you so much for this post. It really helped to reaffirm my decision to pursue photography simply as a hobby/pastime. I’m a high school student, and currently have a job as a graphic and web designer and am really enjoying it. I want to get better at photography though because I am constantly in awe of what a beautifully photographed image can convey, what kind of an impact it can have. Your blog has continued to be a source of inspiration and guidence to me, and I ask you please to continue.
Thank you.
I think you struck a cord with this one, david. You know I am working full-time in another career and do my photography part-time. My photography is “professional” in it’s quality, and I sell it only to support my habit, I don’t live off it. Some of us, just can’t make the leap right now, and that is as it should be. But if, as you have stated here, we remain true to our vision then the difference between the “pro” and the “hobbyist” (I hate that word) is only money and maybe time (My wife wold say I put in full-time hours.) There is a stigma to the label “hobbyist” with some, that makes me uncomfortable. I prefer “part-time professional”
“Part Time Professional, I like that = ) labels are labels , Why is it in the photography you have to label with pro, hobbyist, fine art etc… I never met a professioanl artist – only artists – or a professional musician – only musicians – I am sticking with photographer
Having already turned one hobby into a profession I think you’ve got some excellent points here. You really need to seek out the motivation behind your work. If this motivation leads you to persue a “profession” in photography, so be it.
I think too many of us chase a “photographic” lifestyle that simply doesn’t exist. It is like going somewhere on vacation and then wanting to live there not realizing that your life (bills, responsibilities, etc) are going to follow you no matter how beautiful Paris is in the fall.
Thank You! so much for this latest entry. I find myself starting my day by reading your blog and lately you seem to have honed in to what has been rumbling about in my brain and given words to those thougths. I love doing and sharing the kind of photography that speaks to my heart and your comment a few entries ago about shooting “poems not instruction manuals” is permanently in the front of my head these days. As for a term that I use to describe myself and my relationship to photography the one I like best is “serious amateur” and the sticker on my desk in my home office is “Remain Humble”!! thanks again
I have been subscribing to your posts via RSS google reader. These past two articles have been great.
I’ve been dreaming of doing photography full time since I enjoy it so much, but it is the Computer “Job” that pays the mortgage. I would have to be bring in 10 times more from photography to even consider it full time. In the meantime, I am in an “investment period” since the money I make from photography is used to buy photography gear.
I prefer lenses over postcards.
Wow! This spoke loud and clear and right to me! If you ever lose the inspiration for keeping your blog going… call me I’ll remind you how important it is to me and others in the same place. I was just coming full circle to the same conclusion and having a bit of trouble getting past the Pro vs Hobbyest moniker.