Over the past few months I have really been putting forth a lot of effort into becoming a better photographer.  I have spent many hours and taken thousands of images in my qwest to improve my skills.  Am I finally a “pro”?  Well I will talk about that after the jump.

 Technically a “professional” photographer is one who gets the majority of their income from photography.  While I have not made a dime from photography, I do consider myself to be a professional.  How is that, do you ask?  Well as I have seen the work of many “professional” photographers around town, I find little difference between their work and mine.  As I have been around many photographers, I see a HUGE difference.  It seems they all seem to think they are better than anybody else.  They walk around with their nose so far up in the air, I am surprised they can take pictures of anything but the sky!  They speak to people as if they are robots making no connection with their clients.  How can they when they are to busy barking orders! “Look here”, “look there”, “chin up” seems to be all you hear when you go to a photographer these days.  Where does it say that a photographer must have no personality?  Where does it say you can’t make the experirence enjoyable for both the client(model) and yourself?  Where does it say that you must act like you are purely annoyed to be taking pictures?  I just don’t understand it and I REALLY don’t understand how they can charge the outrageous amounts of money that they do. 

Anybody who has spent more than about ten minutes around me has laughed at me because of me.  It is just what I do and always have done.  If you can make people smile and laugh then they are automatically more at ease with you.  If you are trying to take pictures of somebody who is tense and not relaxed, that will show through in the pictures like a sore thumb!  However if you can make a connection with the person you are shooting and get them to relax, you will get infinitely better pictures of them. 

So who am I to say all this when 99% of my pictures are of things.. not people?  Well hey, take it for what you will.  I know I have good people skills and I bet that most people would be more comfortable with me pointing my “digital uzi” at them, as opposed to one of these pompous “professional” photographers I see around town.