What makes professional photography difficult? What differentiates a professional from an amateur?
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They understand the concepts that result in a good picture. Positioning, expression, lighting, time of day, environment, settings for their equipment etc.
Composition is one element – picking things that look good to photograph, getting lighting correct, using the right angles, stuff like that.
Then there’s the technical aspects of photography. You can adjust things like aperture and focal length on the lens, and exposure time, and these things have an impact on the finished photo.
– Reading the entire manual for the cameras you use, to know how to optimize it
– Lighting, knowing how to use it and when
– Designer elements like how to add effects with basic tools (a small cylinder to look like a tunnel, holding the camera just above water for a mirror effect)
– Knowledge of Photoshop for touch ups and additional effects
r/itookapicture you’ll be able to spot the differences after five minutes of scrolling. The pros draw your eye, tell a story, captivate you etc.; amateurs just don’t do those things.
Might not be the best answer but an amateur “takes nice pictures” but a professional “tells a story”. This is, of course, not black or white (pun intended)
It is, in a way, similar to a musician – the amateur strives for mastery over technique and the professional uses technique to express emotional qualities through their playing.
Just my opinion.
Specifically speaking, a professional is one who makes money with photography. An amateur may be as good as a professional, but does not make a living with it.
It’s the same as the difference between a professional writer and an amateur writer. Professionals get paid for what they do.
Why do professionals get paid, the same reason professional basketball players get payed and the folks at the local court don’t, they are much, much better.
Photography is a graphic art, and there are always varying opinions about individual pieces of art, but over time the money gets spent in a way that most of it goes to the professionals. This lets them pursue their art full time, practicing it more, and getting better at it.
A professional has professional equipment, and an amateur has equipment…
Could be a professional amateur, you know, an amateur with professional equipment.
In addition to knowing about composition and storytelling, professionals have two things: the patience to wait as long as they need to in order to get a specific shot (which also means that they know how to plan to get that shot), and the willingness to take lots and lots of pictures to get a single great shot. It’s easier today with digital images when you can simply delete the 599 shots that didn’t work for some reason. But even film photographers would take dozens or hundreds of shots to get the exposure, focus, expression, or something else that they were specifically looking for.
Understanding the equipment, the light and the composition. Quickest things for an amateur to do to improve, understand how your lens f stop changes the amount of the picture in focus. Learn how changing the zoom of the lens changes the depth of field (how far apart things seem).
Sit for a day and just watch one piece of nature and how it looks so different from predawn to twilight. You will see a difference in colour, saturation, warmth, the way the shadows lay.
Lastly Google s-curve art.
There is lots more a pro knows, but keeping these ideas in mind will be a first good step for an amateur to improve.
Practice, practice, practice.
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