differences in approach

I found this entry on my friend's blog, which was also taken from a book.
I asked his permission if I can repost this, and he says OK. :D
thanks bro josef. :D
here's his originaL bLog. :D
http://josefpanerio.com/blog/

------------------------------------------------------------------------

From : Langford’s Advance Photography 7th Edition

Amateur

People often describe themselves as ‘only’ amateurs, as if apologizing for this status. After all,the word amateurish suggests the second rate. However, amateur simply means that you earnyour living doing something else. Do not assume that amateur photography must always beinferior to professional photography. Each requires an attitude of mind which differs in severalways – but is not necessarily ‘better’ or ‘worse’. As an amateur, you may envy the professional, wishing you could combine business with pleasure into a kind of full-time hobby, using professional equipment and facilities. However, the professional knows that much of the hidden advantage of being amateur is the freedom you have to shoot what and when you like. You can develop your own ideas – experiment in approach, subject and technique – without much concern over how long any of this might take. You can be self-indulgent. (Throughout the history of photography many amateurs have been the visual innovators, such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Paul Strand, Ralph Eugene Meatyardand Jacques-Henri Lartigue.) As an amateur, you can work for an exhibition or a competition of your choice – or just for yourself or family. You can also enjoy the equipment and techniques as a refreshing change from your daily work. On the other hand, you lack the pressure of deadlines, the challenge of commissions and commercial competition to keep you on your toes. It is easy to become complacent or set targets too low to be much of a challenge. After all, the world is not bounded by the judge’s view ofphotography at the local camera club. If you want to take your hobby seriously, you should find the time to keep yourself aware of trends by looking at published photographs and visiting galleries. In this way you can widen your knowledge of how different people use photography to express ideas and communicate information.

Professional

A professional photographer must be reliable. He or she also needs financial and organizational skills, just as much as visual and technical expertise, in order to stay in business. People rely on you as a professional to produce some sort of result, always. Failure does not simply mean youreceive no fee – most work is commissioned, so you have let someone down. A client’s moneyinvested in models, props, special locations, etc. is thrown away, a publication deadline may bemissed or an unrepeatable event remains undocumented.You therefore have to ensure – as far as humanly possible – that everything in the chainbetween arriving to shoot and presenting the finished work functions without fail. You need tobe an effective organizer of people, locations, transport, etc., able to make the right choice oftime and day, and, of course, arrive punctually yourself. You must be able to anticipate hold-ups and avoid them. As a last resort, you should know how to act if a job has to be abandoned or re-shot. Pressures of this kind are both a worry and a stimulus – but, of course, they make a successful result all the more worth while. Working professionally also means that you have to produce results at an economical speedand cost. You must think of overheads such as rent and taxes, and equipment depreciation, as wellas direct costs such as photographic materials and fuel. It is seldom possible to linger longingly over a job as if it was a leisure occupation. You also need to know how to charge – how to cost outa commission accurately and balance a reasonable profit margin against client goodwill (will theycome again?), bearing in mind the competition and the current going rate for the job. Equipment is no more or less than a set of tools from which you select the right ‘spanner’for the picture you have in mind. Every item must give the highest quality results but also berugged and reliable – vital gear may need duplicate backup. The cost of fouling up an assignment because of equipment failure can be greater than the photographic equipment itself, so it is a false economy to work with second-rate tools. You must know too when to invest in new technology, such as digital gear, and what is best to buy.

One of the challenges of professional work is to make interesting, imaginative photographs within the limitations of a dull commercial brief. For example, how do you make a strong pictureout of a set of ordinary plastic bowls – to fill an awkward-shaped space on a catalogue page? Eventually, you should be able to refuse the more dead-end work, but at first you will need every commission you can find. In the same way, you must learn how to promote yourself and build up a range of clients who provide you with the right subject opportunities and freedom to demonstrate your ways of seeing, as well as income. Another relatively open way of working is to freelance as a supplier of pictures for stock libraries. Photography is still one of the few occupations in which you can create and make things as a one-person business or department. It suits the individualist – one reason why the great majority of professional photographers are self-employed. There is great personal satisfaction ina job which demands daily use of visual and technical skills.

‘Independent’

Photography does not just divide neatly into amateur and professional categories. After all, it isa medium – of communication, expression, information, even propaganda – and as such can be practised in hundreds of different ways. You can shoot pictures purely to please yourself and developyour style; for example, working for one-person exhibitions, books and sponsored projects, awards and scholarships. It is possible to build up a national or international reputation in this way if your photography is good enough. You can sell pictures through galleries or agents as works of art. To begin with at least most of these so-called ‘independent’ photographers make their living from another occupation such as teaching, writing or some other kind of photographically related full- or part-time job. Independent photography relies on the growing number of galleries, publications and industrial and government sponsors of the arts interested in our medium. In this, photography follows long established patterns in painting, poetry, music, etc. Ifyou are sufficiently motivated, then working for yourself free of commercial pressures can leadto exciting avant-garde results. Some independent photographers work for political or otherideological beliefs. Outlets here include pressure groups, trade unions, charities, arts centres,local community associations, specialist publishing houses and archives. It is one of the greatstrengths of photography that so many of these options are open to be explored.