Reply To: Advice or Comments please?

[IHF]

She’s right, she needs to learn first.  Her portrature is not strong enough, and she’s clearly still experimenting and developing.  This is not to say she sucks, or doesn’t have any talent.  What you all (as in her family, and non photographers) need to know is… A photographer first shoots for themselves, and not for others.  We experiment, learn, and feel are way through it.  By pushing too hard to go pro and shoot for hire, you could set her up for failure, or at the very least stunt or slow down her learning process.  She’s a photographer, who obviously takes it seriously enough not to sabbotoge herself.  Let her make her own path and take her own journey, this is how she will become the best photographer she can be. Incourage her by appreciating what she does, not what you think she should do.  Fauxtogs on the other hand jump right in without a care usually because they are not photographers and don’t think like photographers do.

By constantly being told she could make money and shoot for hire, you unintentionally are saying what she is currently doing isn’t good enough in your eyes and the only way to validate her photography is to get paid.  Like “what the heck do you do this for?  You can’t be getting anything out of it!  Your waisting time, money and effort on what?” you are saying what she does is a waist of time because she should be doing more.  I know you all mean well, but… Take it from someone in her same boat… Stop pushing and let her discover on her own what she  is capible of.  If she was to jump into business right now, and shoot for others, her photography will suffer for it.  Taking on marketing, customer service, taxes, insurance, websites, etc etc and all that goes into being for hire her photography skills will take a back seat, and she will have turned something she loved into BLAH. This happens to so so so many.  Don’t let it happen to her.  Find a new way to encourage her and support her.

Then, do me a favor and have a talk with my husband and family and friends and convince them of the same lol. What I do is important to me, it means somthing, and just because I am an amateur and am not for hire doesn’t make me not a photographer,  It makes me more of one 🙂  your sister and I are both photographers because we refuse to shoot for others until we are ready, and have the skills necessary to do it successfully.  ( if we ever chose to go pro that is)