What’s the difference between a photographer and someone who takes snapshots? How do you know when your work is art and when it’s not? Is there a difference?

And say you’ve got a talent like photography… what do you do with it? In this fragmented digital age, where money’s too tight to mention, can you make a living from your art?

Photographer Diana Gallagher might know…

MY JOURNEY IN PHOTOGRAPHY – DIANA GALLAGHER

Here’s some sacrilege for you: I had no idea who Ansel Adams was until my brother told me at some point in my twenties.

And I call myself a photographer.

What is that, ‘a photographer’? I’m pretty sure we can’t just say that it is someone who has a degree in photography, because there are so many photographers out there who have never seen the inside of a photography classroom who are making money from their images. And a twelve hour vocational course in how to use your new DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera doesn’t exactly a photographer make, either.

In business, and as far as the tax man is concerned, if you say you are a photographer, and the bulk of your taxable income comes from taking photographs, then you are a photographer. It’s really that simple. There is a bigger discussion as to what makes a photographer a professional, and I tend to lean toward the school of thought that the word ‘professional’ directly correlates to business acumen, and how you present yourself to the market.

Anyone can be a photographer, I’ve decided, and anyone can be a professional photographer. But not everyone will be a good one.

Personally I squirm a bit in my seat when I am referred to as a pro. Maybe that’s just my inferiority complex rearing its ugly head. Or maybe I just know in my own heart that there are professional photographers out there in the world who are head and shoulders above me, and I respect them for that.

Having said all that, I am, like it or leave it, a photographer, and that was something that came to light right about when I took this photo.

See what I did there? I made a photography related pun about light. Ha! Get it? Light? Photography is about light? Ha!

ANYWAY.

This photo made me feel something inside. I took the photo about nine years ago, and now feel it to be my coming of age with making images. I’d been practicing on and off with my film SLR for about two years when I finally achieved this image. There is another image taken on the same roll of film, at much the same time, of the same canine subject (Lil Gallagher, RIP 2007). I haven’t bumped into it yet in my box of tricks, but it too is a reflection (Ha! Another photography pun! As ALF would say, I kill me) of finally achieving what I set out to do with image making at that stage of my development. I’d finally found my ‘eye’.

Those two images inspired me to practice on many more rolls of film, and filled me with enough confidence to branch out into my first foray into making money from photography. Working as an animal attendant for a veterinarian at the time, my boss wanted to replace his Puppy Preschool portrait photographer (no, I am not making this up). And when he saw my photos of animals, he asked me if I would do it. And I said yes. And it made us both money for a little while. Enough to contribute to me and my then husband’s savings for a deposit on a house, which we bought, and then several years later sold for a very tidy profit, some of which I spent on a pro model Canon DSLR, flash, and lens. Because I could.

To say that my personal journey with photography began with the Canon film SLR I bought in 1997 with the winnings from my seven day stint on Brisbane radio B105’s ‘Battle of the Sexes’ competition would be a lie. I was given a point and shoot camera for my eleventh birthday and it all kicked off from there. Already I knew in my own mind the kind of images I wanted to be achieving. Except my equipment was letting me down. Here it is obvious that I was trying to take a close up studio style portrait of ‘Mick’. Check out the lovely sparkly backdrop!

Some days, after I had learnt the limits of my equipment, I took some pretty good shots for an eleven year old.

And this one of ‘Duffer’ even made it onto the ‘readers photos’ pages of a kids magazine. I was dead proud.

 

My love of photography is actually genetic. You should have seen my brother’s wedding. My dad, my sister, my Uncles Tony and Bill, and me had all brought our SLR cameras along. My brother had been forced to leave his at home, but I am sure he probably felt an itch or two during the day. Like when he took off into the sunset with my newly acquired sister-in-law in a speed boat across the waters of Sydney Harbour.

I don’t have any photos from that day. Or the negatives. My brother stole them and I have never seen them again! I’m sure I should be flattered by this.

Speaking of weddings…

In 2001 a colleague of mine at the vet surgery was getting married, and for some reason he seemed to think that my Puppy Preschool photography credentials meant I would be good at wedding photos, too. And because I had not learnt how to say ‘No’ at that point in my life, I agreed to do it. He paid me 100AUD and covered film and printing costs.

It is a miracle that those photos were any good at all.

Once you have done one wedding, the strange overwhelming desire to do more is…strange and overwhelming. Over the next few years I agreed to do several more weddings on the cheap, and I learnt a lot along the way. Like how stressful it can be. After a few years of doing weddings on film, I gave it up, telling myself that I would take it up again once I had some pro digital equipment. The stress of not knowing for sure if the images from the day were successful or not until they were developed and printed was stealing days of my life away from me. Digital, I mused, would be better. Digital would take away the stress, I was sure. With digital, I would be able to see the results right before my very eyes, and then it all would be easy, and I would make shed-loads of easy money, and I would become esteemed in my field, and be able to hail myself as a great success, and the champagne would flow…

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

That’s me, laughing at myself.

Come join with me as I laugh.

Do you know why wedding photographers charge the extortionate amounts that they do? Because they earn it. On a multitude of levels. On the wedding day. Later in the hours of post-production. Every time they field a passive-aggressive email from a Bridezilla who is wondering why they haven’t replied to the email she sent them a whole five minutes ago. And you couldn’t pay me enough to deal with the disappointment of the bride who really genuinely believed she looked twenty years younger and four stone lighter on the day, only to get the photos back and discover that she still looked exactly like herself, albeit in a nice dress and with some lovely flowers (but maybe white isn’t her colour after all).

These days at the ripe old age of thirty three I am a semi-retired pro photographer who still much prefers to get a stunning image of a domestic pet (preferably mine) than anything else. While it’s not sexy or lucrative, it is true to my photographic roots and it shows in my images.

 

I have come to terms with the fact that without some sort divine intervention, I’ll never make a comfortable living from doing what I really love when it comes to photography. And that with this knowledge, it is probably better not to tarnish something you love in the pursuit of the pound.

Diana Gallagher