There is always this myth that your hobby should pay for itself either as a form of investment. People who collect stamps as a hobby a long time ago saw the value in that which they collected. While people who painted saw value in their art but that's not always the case of course with digital photography.

Some of you enjoy a hobby for the sheer pleasure it bring to you and if photography is on that list, it should remain that way. 

In the age of the Internet and social media, it has become apparent that images make for a good story of your passage through the many places that life takes you. I have a friend named Peter who loves food, and he take pictures of them. It has never occurred to him to make that a paying hobby and he never sells what he shoots for stock image sale. 

I have this other guy named Alan who loves collecting old film cameras and using them Although I have never seen a single picture that he has taken nor is he one of those who constantly share what he has shot, nonetheless his hobby of shooting with film cameras has given him immense enjoyment. He's also built up an envious collection of rare cameras which will be worth a good chump of change in years to come. 

One of the beauties of a hobby is that it has to be enjoyed, and for me Photography has always been a solitary enjoyment exercise. You don't need a shooting buddy or a photo assistant to carry your loaded cameras around. 

Start with a Genre you Love

When you start shooting, it has to be on subjects you love. Some love food and they shoot food. Others have phases in their lives, which I am guilty of, and I have drifted from shooting night scenes to macros of bugs and horticulture. Once you discover a challenge worth your time, you pursue it. 

Over the years, I have gone from shooting garden variety macros, to motorsports and cars, dabbled in studio photography of models to see what it was like and even gone on to shoot street photos. I was even told that shooting cars were the most difficult as I couldn't agree more till digital photography arrived and made that relatively easy. 

I eventually settled on street photography, which by definition is the worst paying form of photography today but I still love it. I have sold two street photos to date, both of which were snapped up by a hotel group but these were royalty free. 

Street is cool. I love capturing the daily life of people in urban environments but no one will hire a street photographer for a wedding shoot, or for that matter going Pro when you only have street cred on your name card. Street photography hasn't been a worthwhile vocation for a very long time. 

Why I enjoy Street Photography

When you shoot, you're a hunter. The only difference is that you hunt for pictures to keep in your camera. I had a lot of fun doing this during the 90s when I was in Hanoi, Vietnam. Three of us were out in the streets shooting what was a Soviet era of Vietnam that is very different from what you see today. 

You bagged nice little memories from the trip on the things you see around you but the truth is none of the pictures were sold. I remember passing some of the slides to an image bank and for years, they held it. None were sold. 

The secret why they were not sold is because no one would buy them. You see, photos only sell if they represent a commercial product. Even editorial photos hardly sell these days except maybe for royalty free use. 

Today, street photography pictures are still not hot sellers. It never could earn you a pretty penny unless you framed it up as an abstract piece and sold it at a souvenir store. That's quite an investment if you asked me but the whole point here is street photography isn't about making money. 

For me, it has always been about collecting memories of places that I have been. 

Keeping your Hobby Manageable

Yes, photography can get out of hand. You start to want things, like maybe a 300mm lens and accessories. Things will start to get expensive as you start collecting lenses so don't get into the habit of buying things that you regret later. 

For me, I never did have that regret even though that spiffy 70-200mm f/2.8 lens is hardly used by me, it served its purpose from another time when I shot motorsports. I did point this lens on a monkey and some local wild life but none of these pictures sold anymore than the ones I put up on numerous image banks. 

Keeping your photography simple and affordable is the key to enjoying it. There is no reason to be a gear head because at the end of the day, you'd be judged on what you shot....and not what you shoot with. 

If there was a place you could rent a lens or borrow one, so much the better. You have to develop your style of shooting and often, you only end up with carrying 2 lenses at most. Going crazy with a long list of prime lenses isn't going to make you a better photographer. It is at this point that we photos call these folks 'gear heads'. 

Being a 'gear head' isn't going to make you a better photography by any count. You may fuss over the different apertures and sensors on each camera but you come out shooting blanks as none of the pictures are any good. 

People who enjoy pictures and photography can tell if you are a bad photographer by looking at your images. It is something that photogs know and they won't tell you because they don't know you well enough to tell you in your face. Why bother?

Think in Pictures

I find that visualisation helps you see things better when it comes to framing a subject. 
This is an exercise in creativity as you visually place the subject in the window of your mind and see how it would look before taking that shot. 

Some like to squeeze a few shots in every angle imaginable and hope to get lucky with one. That's not helping you train your mind. As a hobby, you need to let that spark in your mind do its magic. Once that comes naturally, you're good to go. 

As a writer cum photographer, I have done my rounds as a photojournalist whenever the call came up and for that, I have never found it as a means to make money from it. It was part of the job. People often ask me about shooting street and I tell them that you need to have a few qualities before you embark on your quest. First, let's be clear photojournalism is about observing life through the lens and in many ways, it is the same as Street Photography. You don't make tones of money from Street Photography, and unfortunately in the West, you can even get arrested for just having a camera pointed at some place within the city. Cameraphobia as I call it, need only apply to big city places like London or New York. If you have a natural affinity for observing people, you'd pick out interesting scenes to frame your pictures but the best kept secrets are often ones that you tend to ignore. 

Don't Attract Attention

A rule that is often ignored as you lug that huge DSLR with a massive Zoom lens.  People like to pretend to be some big shot photographer and become the target of thieves and police. This is not the way to do Street Photography. As much as possible, people should not know you're capturing pictures. Use a smaller camera when possible and learn to blend in instead of stand out. Smaller cameras too have smaller zoom lenses with equal magnifying power, so there is no excuse for carrying that bulky DSLR. 

Use Fixed Lenses

For a change, be limited by your equipment and see how you can best adapt to that situation with a fixed lens camera. In the old days, a 50mm lens was called a standard lens and the preferred choice of all street photographers. HCB of Magnum was famous for this. So if he could do it, why can't you? 

Shoot from the Hip

A lesser known method is to shoot from the Hip and with a fixed lens, it is so much easier. Shoot from the hip is precisely that, you trigger the shutter when you "feel" a picture is happening before you without peering down on your viewfinder. 

Some of the best pictures may not happen at eye level and you have to feel your way around it. If you were born a Hobbit, then it's eye level. 

Once you get accustomed to the field of view of a fixed lens, it becomes very easy for you estimate the length and depth of your subject. It is not a precise way of composition but the results are sometimes quite surprising. 

I have often been asked about the Megapixel debate, is it some urban legend? Folklore? Or some old wives tale perpetuated by camera manufacturers? But what I am going to say is going to be based on facts, and having worked with Sony's DSLR division, I sort of know the good and bad of the megapixel race. All too often, we find ourselves confronted with decisions on which camera is better based on just the megapixel count of a sensor. Now more megapixel means more detail in a picture but only if it is exposed well. Put that context into a low light scene, the sensor's sensitivity comes into play and this negates any gain in detail. But let's not work on that. Let's assess what more megapixels will do for you.

The Good side of More Megapixels

Henri Cartier Bresson of Magnum, known fondly as HCB, didn't like his photos cropped but with more megapixels, cropping is actually good. Let's use a photo I took as an example. The original is above. Let's do a HCB time lapse into the world of B/W photography and turn this into a contrasty picture of a street scene.

The composition isn't spot on. There is lot of room and in the editorial room, it would be considered a "loose" photo since it is not tightly composed.

Here is the cropped photo, by throwing away rougly 1/3 of the size of the photo, it becomes a better picture. So if you happen to be shooting with a 24 megapixel DSLR, this image would be roughly 24MB in RAW size and after cropping, a third of frame, you are still left with 18MB of image data. Now that is a big image!

The BAD of having More Megapixels

High density sensors cost more to manufacturer and low light handling isn't as good.
Often, dynamic range will suffer as these smaller high density sensors just doesn't have the muscles compete unless helped along with brute force noise reduction steroids. Larger sensors handle light better but large high density sensor cameras also cost a bomb to own.

The UGLY side of More Megapixels

If you look at the above cropped pictures, and realize that you can take a "loose" picture and still rescue it later with cropping, don't you think that you'd be a loose photographer than a tight one? Pros everywhere have one strong point, they don't need any image cropping for it to come out right. Should you rely on more megapixels to save your day, then you will forever be dependent on it. By relying on post production miracles, you'd stop being a photographer and more of an image manipulator. This is the ugly side of photography which we all try to avoid but get sucked into. Cropping your image in-camera is the best way to go if you want to improve your sense of composition.

Conclusions

There is no right or wrong way to see this Megapixel Myth. The more insecure you are about your pictures, then the obvious route to take is to have more megapixels. The more confident you are about your photography, then the megapixel myth would have fallen away from you mind and in essence make you an even better photographer. So learn to work with what you have.

Marissa Meyer of Yahoo may have earned the rancor of photographers everywhere when she categorically said that there is no such thing as a "professional photographer" after the relaunch of the Flickr site.

Such anger from the photographic community is not new, which reflects the very sorry state of digital imaging and digital photography.

Before we jump into this contentious issue let's put everything up for review.

Digital Imaging is a Disruptive Force 

You can't deny how digital imaging has changed the professional landscape forever. Unlike the days of film, where every shot you took costed money, every frame you squeeze out of a DSLR now is free from processing fees.

So when it is free, you get to shoot more at no further cost. And when you shoot more, you gotta have ONE frame in your hundreds of shots that will nail the shot a client wants. If this is the case, then the client will automatically assume that to get ONE frame that is spot on for them, they can't be possibly paying you for your time or exposure cost!

Will Work for Peanuts?

How many times have you answered a call for a photographic project only to realize that you will be paid with "Exposure" and "links to your website".  I am afraid there are just too many to call up. Internet sites like dpreview.com and thephoblographer.com use this to lure photographer cum writers out to the open with the promise of "exposure".

If you try editorial work, and have a portfolio to show, you'd probably be asked to shoot for free in return for a byline that shows you own the photo. For the offending publication, they get to use your photo for life and once up on the Internet, it will be flogged and reused to death without your permission.

So be mindful about those "work for free" projects that could bring you a few second of Internet fame but little else.

Don't Be a Gear Head

Love the new DSLR? Gotta have that new spiffy lens? Do you earn enough to buy all that in a single leap? Let's not fool ourselves about the cost of these new toys. Buy what you NEED and not what you want. The difference between the two is obvious. The ones you NEED are the ones that have immediate value to you. The ones you WANT are dream toys and tools you wish to have.

It's the Business and not the Photography

Photography as seen through the eyes of professionals has to be more these days especially when you are starting out. Going pro is about earning a living out of it and not about your photography alone. You need to have the acumen to run a business!

There is no two ways around it. Either you have it or you don't. Often it is never about your photography but rather how you run a profitable business that decides if you can turn pro.

The Last Word

Any monkey with a camera can claim to be a pro these days. Digital photography has made it so much easier to shoot a picture that any iPhone totting folk can claim to be a photographer of sorts specializing in food porn. When you have competition from such a crowd, how do you justify that 300 dollar an hour food shoot in your studio?

There will always be a demand for photographers in every industry, it's just a matter if that is a paying one. I have read elsewhere that in order to be a successful photographer, you need to do some market research and price your services lower than the next guy you're fighting with. If that was a success formula, then we should all set up stalls selling $1 dollar take away coffees just outside Starbucks. I am sure it will work. Don't you think?