How do you define the term “professional photographer”? The common answer is that a professional photographer is someone who gets paid to take pictures.
Of course that’s wrong.
There are many people who get paid for taking photos and they’re nowhere near professional, either in the quality of their work or the quality of their business, assuming they even have a business. Also, a good photographer is not necessarily a professional photographer.
How about this definition:
A professional photographer is someone one who gets paid to anticipate potential photography problems and then deal with them before they become problems.
For example: a professional photographer is paid to recognize or anticipate bad lighting, distracting backgrounds and foregrounds, reflections in eyeglasses and windows, refresh rates of computer displays and TVs, colour casts from nearby walls and overhead lights, and much more, and is then expected to correct these issues ahead of time to produce an excellent photograph.
A professional knows how to anticipate such things as the gestures of a speaker at a press conference, the movement of a dignitary through a crowd or the flow and energy of a sports event, and then know where to be ahead of time to create the best photograph.
A professional knows what questions to ask the client ahead of time so that the assignment runs smoothly, predictably, on time and on budget.
Back in 1927, a radio manufacturer coined the slogan, “The quality goes in before the name goes on”, referring to its brand name, Zenith.
Similarly, when it comes to professional photographers, the “professional” should go in long before the camera button gets pushed. Why expect anything less?
