>>2857238
I don't follow him but from what I've seen he mainly finances himself through workshops. He manages to fill these because he has a personality that people like and I think because the directness of his photographs is something people want to learn.

From what I've seen art jobs are just super competetive. You need to have a style that people like and you need to be able to sell yourself really well.

>>2857238
If you want people to pay you for your photos, then you have to take photos that the people around you will pay for. That's usually providing a service, like shooting a wedding, engagement, senior photos, birthdays, etc. If you want to make money with your knowledge, you have to take your time to give it to people through workshops or something online.

Nobody is going to pay you for photos of flowers and sticks and strangers' backs on the street, and why would they? What are they going to do with that?

>>2857238
I'm a scientist and I've made peace with the fact I'll never make money from my hobby, it'll remain just that.

>>2857238
>How did eric kim do it?

he is asian. you cant fake yellow industriousness.

>>2857238
whoring yourself to customers? No thank you. The other option is becoming respected as a fine art photographer, which takes social skills, the right contacts and luck.

>>2857238

>le photography as a profession meme

photography is a third tier profession at the same level as bricklaying. it takes about as much skills and it pays about the same.

the only reason it is somewhat popular is because there is a cross with photography as a hobby. it's a lot like cooking in this respect.

>>2857251
>From what I've seen art jobs are just super competetive. You need to have a style that people like and you need to be able to sell yourself really well.

This. I'm around art "business" a bit, gf works in a gallery and I went to music school myself. I only do music as a freelance side job because of the time and effort it would take to reinvent my style into something more marketable, as well as all the networking etc. and I'd still have NO guarantees. Obviously there's people scraping by who just do their art stuff and aren't pushing it everywhere, but from what I've seen the truth is almost all of them have a day job on the side. For a lot of them it's just something easy they can do with flexible hours.

Eric Kim does a lot of workshops and he's insanely prolific with is blog, all the books he's written, youtube stuff, interviews and so on.

I know personally I'm happy I'll be graduating in a year with a degree in IT. I'd way rather do that than "sell out" and turn something I love into a boring job.

You're going to have a shit load of pitfalls as a photographer.

Back in 2011, I was assisting pretty damn hardcore. Many c-stands and call sheets. Today, I am nothing.

This year, I haven't shot anything professionally for almost the past 365 days, even though I give out business cards and advertise on Craigslist.

So. Much. Email and promotion. With no results.

You're in a good position. You have income, so you can be really selective with clients. You might not have the time, but work it out. Eventually, you can transition by hand-picking your clients and shooting the stuff you want to do.

Just keep it up, anon. This business is the business where you're literally putting in job apps every week, writing, promoting, portfolio, projects.

Hope this helps.

>>2857238
>emigrated
shit, dude, have you thought about, I don't know, doing some market research or something before making the biggest decision of your life?

I want to emigrate too, and I hope to work with photography too, but I'm planning on moving to a country that actually has plenty of photography-related jobs and great visual arts schools.

>>2857320
>photography is a third tier profession at the same level as bricklaying. it takes about as much skills and it pays about the same.

I thought this was a pretty harsh assertion, but it really can be a soulless shit job. I used to work as a barman at weddings and the photographers were treated like shit, had to haul a massive amount of gear, had to jump in and out of important bits of the ceremony. It seemed like hell. And they looked like they were beyond fed up with it. Any sort of individuality and creativity is completely thrown out the window.

I guess they have to deal with clients saying shit like "make my pictures """""""pop"""""" !!! ", when doing post. Fuck that shit.

>>2857375
>before making the biggest decision of your life?
I come from a place where it is incredibly common to emigrate, m8. But yes researching would have helped but my hand was kind of forced and I had to leave and move somewhere out in the countryside where there isn't much work.

I'm moving again to Vancouver though, hopefully there will be plenty of work there for me.

>>2857395
oh, syria, got you

>>2857397
Close, Ireland