How Do You Become A Professional Photographer?

There is something that bothers me about photography, something that I just can’t get my head around and that is the question “how do you become a professional photographer?” I am a hairdresser by trade, I went to college for two years and gained my City and Guilds qualification in the Hair and Beauty industry. I trained hard and passed with flying colours… I am a “professional” hairdresser, I have the certificate to prove it!...

When I first got into photography back in the 1990’s I was lucky, I fell on my feet I suppose. I got to work freelance at Silverstone race track just by getting my face seen. Turning up to numerous F1 tests, blagging my way to a meeting with the media office (luckily they thought my photos were great) which then in turn opened the door to the fab world of motorsport photography.



When I gave this up in 2001 (after life got in the way) I had no idea that I would one day be jogging down the route of pro photographer again. I’m so glad I am as photography is a passion of mine that never died, but this time I wanted to do it right. I wanted to be able to do something, have a tangible thing to prove that I am a professional photographer. However, there didn’t seem to be an easy answer to this problem.

I started by approaching a few photographic companies, magazines and “professional” photographers to see which course or qualification they suggested. Unfortunately, they all came back with the same answer. “Don’t bother wasting your money on courses and qualifications, photography is something you just need to practise, you either have it or you don’t!”


The problem with that is, how do you know you have it? Let’s face it friends and family tend to be biased and I obviously like my work or I wouldn’t even be considering it as a serious career change. So, I booked myself on a couple of day courses to refresh my rusty SLR skills and bravely asked the “pro’s” taking the course to have a flick through my portfolio and give me a honest opinion on whether I had it, or not. Thankfully the feedback was very positive and this gave me the confidence to move forward.

However, six months after starting my business with many followers and supporters behind me, I still feel like a phoney. I know there are a lot professionals in the photography world who are a little disgruntled by the amount of people who “just pick up a DSLR these days and think they are a pro” and I hope to god they don’t put me in that box... I certainly don’t claim to be the best, but I do want to be the best that I can be! I admit am not technically perfect, in fact far from it, but, I do have an artistic eye.


So what does make a photographer professional? Well, some say it’s all down to knowing the detailed technicalities of your camera, some say it’s a having a specific qualification and others say it’s when you start earning money from your work.

All I know is photography is an art, I have always said you can put 100 photographers into a the same field with the same camera and they will all capture a different picture. No one is better than the other, they just all have a unique eye and a sprinkle of imagination. I think it boils down to the age old adage that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and if someone likes your work enough to pay for it, then it’s obviously good enough for them and that in turn should be good enough for me.