Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/10/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Marty Deveney offered: >> If you are a pro photographer, how do you find time to amass a great body >> of personal work if you keep getting sent to take pictures of cats stuck in trees by your sadistic editor who wants the files within three minutes of the shutter closing?<<<< I suppose as a pro it depends on whom you shoot for and how long you work on assignments. My main collection of photography images are held by the National Archives of Canada... 280,000 images! Plus another 100,000 in the National Gallery of Canada, all my work while on documentary assignments for the National Film Board of Canada. The total in the Archives alone is the largest collection by a single photographer in the history of this country. Yes I worked as a news-photographer, albeit long before digital, but we still hustled our butts and dealt with several visually impaired editors. But that never stopped us from shooting other things to our liking. >>A pro career is a great way to learn, just because you literally live >>photography. <<<<< True, but even as a working pro I always had a personal project I worked on for my own self satisfaction. I suppose the difference is I live and breath photography 29 hours a day, 14 days a week! It's a passion that has driven me through a 60 year career around the world and back several times. >>But some of the very best work is done by 'amateurs' or more correctly >>perhaps 'advanced hobbyists', those who do not make their living out of photography, because they have the time to get everything right, it doesn't matter (or at least it's not career limiting or ending) if something messes up, and they are not under the same pressures to make deadlines or make ends meet. <<< Yes there are amateurs who do quite incredible photography and I've never ever had a problem with that simply because I started as an amateur. And progressed to where I was invited to become a staff photographer, for at the time, the largest photography company in Ottawa, Canada, which included shooting as a news photographer for the Ottawa Citizen newspaper. Eventually leaving there to have my own company which still exists today. As having the time to get it right? Well again that's the difference between someone who's a real pro and not an electronic button pusher who really doesn't need to know a hell of a lot about photography! Simply because the innards of his electro capturing machine does it all ! An interesting subject, however I can honestly say at this point in the history of photography I must say I'm glad I'm not at the beginning of my career, but rathere the end! A couple more books and it'll be a rap! :-) cheers, Dr. ted :-)