If you’re serious about photography, at some point the question will need to be addressed: should you become a professional?
By “professional” I mean someone who gets paid for an activity, as their main income. I’m not presuming ability, popularity, or even artistry. I assume you can do the job technically. And I’m not talking about a side hustle that just supplements your day job.
Many years ago, ca 2007, I started doing wedding photography. I did a few gigs, for friends to start with, and didn’t get paid much for it. I usually did an engagement session so that the couple would get used to have their photo taken away from the big day, then the wedding on location (all over the place). But I kind of enjoyed the search for interesting shots (planned in advance with the couple) and then the hunt on location for interesting candids.
At some point, after a few weddings, I started wondering: should I become a professional wedding photographer?
At the time the industry was quite good and a lot of people went crazy for good wedding photos (trash the dress anyone?). I wasn’t good, but it was the right time to start a career. So, unlike today, money-wise it was a good move.
But something was holding me back. The same thing that held me back at the end of high school. At that time, I had to choose what to do next. I had my diploma (baccalaureat), and I had been accepted in most places I applied to. These were split into two categories: medicine, and computing.
Both were obsessions of mine. I wanted to study medicine to become a GP, then once done move to genetics for a PhD. I had been passionate about genetics for a few years and I had already covered the first several years of university curriculum on the subject (I bought the university books and did the associated tests for fun). I really wanted to know more and better things about it.
I also wanted to study computers because they had been my passion since I was 11. I had learned everything I could (which turned out to be more than I would at engineering school), and I wanted to know everything there was to know about them.
But I couldn’t do both. I had to make a choice. I agonised over it all summer, one day deciding on one, then changing my mind and preferring the other the next. Eventually, the last deadline came and I had to take a decision. I went for computers. I’m still not sure to this day if it was the right choice, but I don’t regret it: I had a good and fulfilling career (over 30 years so far). I would end up doing a PhD, but not in genetics.
Even though both genetics and computers were both passions, the reason I went for computers was that I was the most confident that passion would survive the daily grind. I decided that my obsession with everything computers was strong enough to survive being my hobby, but also my job. In that case, I was right, I still do a lot on my free time with computers (my software and hardware run my home heating, remote observatories, etc), and I still like it.
So when the same question arose about 15 years later, I had to look at it the same way. And I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t so sure this time that my passion would survive the daily grind. It’s one thing to do a few weddings, even getting paid for those, but doing it day in, day out, at the mercy of bridezilla, I wasn’t convinced I would have the patience. Also wedding photography is hard work, and not that much of it fun.
So I let the opportunity go and kept photography as a hobby. I stopped doing weddings (too much pressure for a hobby), and enjoyed doing things on my own terms.
So, in conclusion, I don’t have a definitive answer. I experienced both sides of the answer: I went pro for one hobby, and not for another, for the same reasons. It is definitively a risk and I’ve seen people abandon job and hobby when they got ruined by the daily strain of the job (one deciding he preferred to deliver pizzas than having to deal with computers any longer). In hindsight, I think in each case I made the right decision.
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