You Will Fail as a Photographer. You Should Try Anyway.

Vision and talent are often valued in creative circles as the means to a career in photography. Work on your craft and the jobs will come. This is true to some extent, but it is also a fair bit of rubbish.

Being talented and honing a specific point of view as a creative are things a photographer should ultimately strive for. Depending on the type of work you are looking to create, your unique perspective and voice as seen through a curated portfolio or body of work can mean the difference between getting a job or not.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t strive to have a specific vision or to work hard to get a portfolio you are happy with. This is exactly what I’m saying. Work hard to make your portfolio as good as you can make it.

Get out there. Read a book. See a show or two. Contemplate. And then, make a few good pictures.

However, the misconception is that having a good portfolio is all it takes to be a working photographer. It is not. Talent is not enough. If you are talented, there are at least a hundred other photographers who are equally talented with an equally unique point of view who are just as deserving as you are and just as hungry as you are to create work for a job. Talent alone isn’t enough.

So, what is the magic formula? How do you become successful as a photographer?

The thing is, there isn’t some deep, hidden get-rich-quick scheme. It’s work. And it’s making images. Pick up a camera and make the images that you want to make. And then, keep doing that every day, over and over and over again. One day you might get lucky and the right person might see it, and then, it’s a bit of a snowball effect.

But until then, you just kind of have to squirrel away and tap into your creative space and just make images. Get into your studio or onto the road and keep plugging away at it.

This article kind of started gloomy and didn’t pick up. What is the point? It’s not so much to tell you to not be a professional photographer or chase your passions but rather that creative industries are a tough business to be in. Not everyone gets the same opportunities. Wanting to make images needs to be your core. You have to want to do this, to want to do this to the point where you are willing to sacrifice for your craft. And if you can truly say that, knowing there are days you might be very uncomfortable as a person because you’ve sacrificed so much to be an artist, then keep working away at it and keep making things. This isn’t to say that you should make yourself intentionally uncomfortable, but rather that this isn’t the easiest career path. Whether you’re in a commercial stream or more art-oriented, photography is fiercely competitive with little opportunities and less money. You have to be in it for the pictures.

The rest will hopefully fall into place.