The division between professional and amateur, to me, seems to be based more in specific terminology than results or process. There’s also the point of deciding whether or not to include “artistic value” into the professional equation - if process dicates professionalism, then artistic value has no place. If this is the case, then are all artists amateurs? How could you have a professional artist? What about the painter who regularly sells their work for $2,000? Are they professional simply because they make more money with their work? Or is it because of the business process by which they make that money?

I love stuff like this. It’s funny and confusing. I’m more apt to go with the system Niels mentions - that of beginner, intermediate and advanced. Even then, there’s likely to be a problem, as I can classify many alleged professionals as intermediate level. Like art, I guess it’s more subjective than objective, really.

Fantastic post!

I think by definition, hobbyists are freed from being professionals. They’re not making any money at it!

It’s easy as an amateur to denigrate professionals as being somehow devoid of art. So busy chasing the almight dollar, they lose sight of the magic of photography. But for every professional who has forgotten why they started shooting in the first place, there’s an amateur who will never have the discipline to take an artistic vision beyond the next flickr upload.

Artistic excellent strikes equally among amateur and professional. And leaves most from either side untouched.

An amateur is just someone who doesn’t earn the majority of his income for the identified profession and is in theory free to pursue his or her artistic passion without an client constraints.

I still think the terms beginner, intermediate and advanced and even master better qualify the skills of photographers.

Early on and this still was in effect until the late eighties, there was technical skill required to take any image correctly. The new cameras with their vast amount of processing capabilities has almost stripped the need for any technical camera skill at least when shooting in everyday conditions. That is why we have so many good images of everyday items.

There is still skill needed when you wan to be the master of light, flashes, reflectors, gobo etc.

The hard part and for most of us and this can be learned, is artistic expression. How to make the ordinary something extraordinary. How to make people stop and look and think about your image. To create emotion is really what separates the best form the ordinary.

There are many professional photographers who works are purely bland and boring. cookie-cutter solutions, But I would also suspect that there are many amateurs that are worse as they are only beginning there artistic journey, but give them time and support from the rest of us and one day they may be great.

Niels Henriksen

Great observation and queries. I would say “Yes” to both. I know I find much more enjoyment from my photography when I’m freed from the confines of them being “others” photographs. Less pressure, as it were, I think.

I look forward to reading this. Thanks for the review.