Work and Pleasure are One in the Same
[by Gail Mooney]
Seth Godin recently wrote in his blog about professionals and amateurs:
“If you want something done, perhaps you would ask a professional to do it. Someone who costs a lot but is worth more than they charge. Someone who shows up even when she doesn’t feel like it. Someone who stands behind her work, gets better over time and is quite serious indeed about the transaction.
Or perhaps you could hire a passionate amateur. That’s a forum leader doing it for love, not money. An obsessive in love with the craft. A talented person willing to trade income for the chance to do what he loves, with freedom.”
He goes on to say “don’t hire someone who just thinks it’s a job.” I guess I’m lucky because I have never really thought of my photography or shooting motion as a job. In fact most of the times I don’t even look at what I do as “work”. I think work has taken on a negative connotation in our society and there seems to be a line drawn between work and pleasure. But for me, work and pleasure are one in the same.
So I guess I could look at Seth’s quotes above and not really identify myself as a professional or an amateur, at least just going by his descriptions. I think I’m a mix between the two or maybe I’m a “passionate professional”. I sometimes think that professional photographers get a bit jealous of the amateur, especially if they are not doing gratifying work. And that doesn’t just happen when someone has been in the business too long – it happens because you get derailed from what gives you joy. I’ve seen some photographers and other creative’s get defensive about being a professional because they feel threatened by the amateur who is doing what they love to do. Perhaps somewhere along the line they lost the passion, or maybe it was never there to begin with.
Nowadays, just about anyone can take a pretty good photograph because the tools have become so easy to use. And since amateurs don’t really have the fear of failure because they don’t have as “much at stake” – they tend to take more chances and good things come when you are willing to do that. You can no longer define a professional photographer as one who just knows how to operate a camera proficiently. And if a pro positions himself/herself by the tools that they use, it’s only a matter of time that they become out of fashion as their tools become obsolete.
So rather than get defensive about being a professional and feeling threatened by the amateur – maybe we pros should take a lesson from them and focus on the joy of creating imagery.
Gail Mooney runs a video production company www.kellymooney.com.
