Since the digital came out, I’ve seen a lot of low level around.
Buying a Canon or a Nikon camera can make all of us great photographers… and if you buy a Wacom tablet you can even be a great photo retoucher…
Fu.. it! Nothing can be more wrong.
I met so many professional photographers selling their jobs like saying: ” no problem, I can take the pictures, I can work for the photo retouch and during the weekend I can even teach some photo techniques at the art school in my town or on any kind of website…”
That’s crazy.
And because I respect the job I do every single day since 20 years, and mostly I respect the professional people working in this business at the highest level, let me tell you one more time:
“You can’t do all of those things unless you are doing all of them at a very cheap level.
You can be a professional photographer and that’s making your 20 hours a day full, with travels, shootings and everything that comes with that.
Of course you can and you must have the knowledge needed for a good level with Photoshop, but wait… I said good level, not the professional one.
You can’t be a great photo retoucher if you only have 4 hours a day to sleep…
And at the end, when do you think you can teach? during the weekend?
Wrong! because as a photographer, there’s no weekend.
So, here is my point for the many ones asking in their emails.
You must choose, you can be a pro photographer, that’s all. You can be good enough with photoshop to have a first impression on your images, but you can’t be a professional photo retoucher if you are a pro photographer, you don’t really have time for that. It’s like living 2 lives.
At the end you wanna be a teacher and record some videos for Lynda or Linked in???
Well, tell me when? It’s impossible, there’s not enough time. How can you make it?
I mean, I totally respect the guys recording videos telling us how to be a photographer. They do an amazing job.
They call themselves photographers, but they are not, they’re teachers otherwise instead of teaching they were outside on location taking pictures.
That’s the point.
Please do not believe in someone who’s telling you that he or she can do all the steps, photography, photo retouching and teaching… bullshits.
Some I met on location told me they are good with photoshop, premiere, photography, photo retouching, and more… when they finish to talk for nothing I ask them… “ok now seriously what do you do in your life? because I didn’t get it”.
Pick up one and be good in that direction, you can’t really have time for all the other things.
These are all serious jobs, you can’t really be all of them.
Just one, it’s enough for this life.
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