Anybody Making Any $$Money By Way Of Their FILM Photography?

[RezaLoghme]

If a camera has "Pro" in its name, it is aimed at the ambitious amateur.

 

[Don_ih]

If a camera has "Pro" in its name, it is aimed at the ambitious amateur.

Like the RZ67 Pro II, that unobtrusive family snapshooter...

 

[RezaLoghme]

It can do 6x7.

 

[cliveh]

It means absolutely nothing.

 

[Don_ih]

It means absolutely nothing.

Would a rose by any other name smell as rosy?

 

[Luckless]

It was always the other way around.
A lot of the camera equipment that was designed for heavy commercial or professional work happened to be black.
So a lot of models that were designed to compete in the amateur/advanced amateur marketplace came out in black, or were offered with a black option, to capitalize on the perception that black meant high end.
The true professionals couldn't care less, unless they needed black for something like surveillance work.

Black camera bodies have a practical purpose: They reflect less light.

The first camera I bought for myself when I decided to dive in and explore photography as something more than just random family snapshots was a Canon Rebel simply because it fit my budget and seemed to offer enough controls to really experiment with. And I had the option of buying it in black or red. I went with red for two reasons:

- I wanted it for photographing around paintball fields, and figured the red would highlight against my black mask better and hopefully be less likely to be mistaken for an active player.
- Wanted something that made it 'more obvious' I wasn't a professional photographer.

Turns out a fairly bright red camera shows up a whole lot better in reflections within your photos than a dark black one... An incredibly minor detail that I only noticed in a tiny handful of photos over the years I used that camera, but it did make for several images with a distracting red mark that drew the eye in unwelcome paths.

So while I would have loved if some of those fun Art Deco or Art Nouveau like styled cameras had held on in the market strong enough to have some 80s era professional grade gear floating around, I can entirely understand there were many reasons that wasn't the case.


As for actually making money from film work? ... No. Not a dime so far. That's a very negative number that we don't need to attempt to account for at this time, but I also haven't actually made an effort. But this is a hobby and exploration thing for me. If I do try diving into making any money off it it will be years yet before I have a catalog of negatives that I'm happy with and satisfied in my printing of before I'm brining anything to market.

 

[DF]

As I mentioned before, photography has always been a hobby and I’ve made no real attempts at monetizing it. It did, about 30 years ago, almost become a full time teacher of film photography when the photography teacher at the high school where I taught retired and I was offered the job. I suppose that would have qualified as making $$money by way of film photography but I declined the position. The reason was that I was interested in starting computer programming classes at the school and was given full reign to do so. That worked out really well for me and the the photography class was absorbed into the art depeartment where they hired a new teacher who is/was really great.

The issue of monetizing one’s hobby is an interesting subject on its own and maybe could be thread of its own. A hobby is “an activity that someone engages in, purely for the pleasure of doing it. It is usually done during their leisure time. While it can be something that produces monetary income, this is not the primary purpose for engaging in it….Hobbies are not passive activities as they take a degree of involvement by those engaging in them.” (I am quoting myself from my own web site that looks at Hobbies, Interests, and Passions.)

The questions I’d pose are does monetizing a hobby detract from the enjoyment one gets from it and does the work done or produced change to make it more salable? Over the years I’ve had people “should” on me, telling me that I should be making money with one of my varied skill sets instead of just doing them for fun and, in many cases, giving away my time or the products. It’s not like I didn’t already had a career path (OK, several of them) that kept a roof over my head and food on the table.

It's a rare occurrence and combination when and where someone is doing something they truly love while at the same time it being their occupation.
My eyes are glued to the Fab in Peter Jackson's Get Back as I ponder how they're completely immersed in in THEIR natural environment (studio), creating > writing-composing-singing- all-and-everything-else that comes along with it.
Are they worried about how to $pay the rent? How long could Apple last? What's next after they split - have to "return" to civilian life and get a real job?
No of course not.
Isn't there a Latin word for this - ?

 

[VinceInMT]

It's a rare occurrence and combination when and where someone is doing something they truly love while at the same time it being their occupation…

I know quite a few people who spent decades immersed in their careers and claiming that they loved what they did, so much so that it was all they did in life. It wasn’t until they retired that they found their real passions and realized that work just something they were good at.

I had 5 of what I’d refer to as “jobs” in my adult life, jobs that lasted for serval years each, and only the last one, high school teacher, can I claim that I really loved and that the income it produced was only secondary. The only one of the 5 I really disliked, and would have quit if I could, was when I was drafted into the military. That gig was awful. However, during all those years I pursued plenty of outside hobbies and after retiring 12 years ago I have even more time to do so.

 

[koraks]

I know quite a few people who spent decades immersed in their careers and claiming that they loved what they did, so much so that it was all they did in life. It wasn’t until they retired that they found their real passions and realized that work just something they were good at.

Lucky them. Had they found out earlier, their working life would have been unbearable.

 

[backseatpilot]

It's interesting to read through biographies of famous photographers and learn how few of them actually "made money" doing any of this. Diane Arbus was impoverished for most of her life. Alfred Stieglitz ran galleries, magazines, and created his own work none of which apparently ever made a profit; he came from wealth and married an heiress.

I think there's a broader question of who has ever made money "doing art" if you define "art" to mean the creation of something beautiful and meaningful to the creator. By and large the great masters of western art were being paid to create representations of their patrons, the patron's family, their home and possessions. Vermeer was making stuff to fill the homes of the nouveau riche like other tradesmen of the time (and died in significant debt!).

I have gotten the bug for selling things I create, probably because I've fully reached middle age and anxiety about my own mortality is driving me to spread what I've created in the vain hope that I'll be remembered. It's fun to connect with people, and it's nice to see people appreciate what I've made. But that work barely covers costs. I've taken on a couple of portrait clients as one-offs (still not my day job) and those pay better but it's less "art" and more trade work, in my opinion.

 

[Pieter12]

Diane Arbus was impoverished for most of her life.

Diane Arbus chose to live off her earnings as a photographer. She came from a wealthy family but turned her back on them. Although they did lose a lot during the Great Depression, they still had money.

In the early days of art photography, prints sold for a pittance. Most photographers from that era had to have a portrait practice or work as photojournalists in order to survive.