Your current 'level'

[Athas_orm]

Hi I was just wondering and yeah I'm sure its been asked before but...

What level of photographer is everyone and by level I mean "Casual Hobiest" "Serious Hobiest" "Moonlighter" "Full Time professional.

In a forum called digital photography school. I'm surprised how many of you seem to be Moonlighters or higher.

I don't know. Its a little daunting. I've hardly picked up the camera since Easter. I'm never going to get the time to develop from casual hobbiest if I ever reach that level.

So what about everyone here? Love to hear what you do. How many hours you do it for?

That last sentence isn't supposed to be lewd btw.

"Once you label me you negate me."

-Søren Kierkegaard

[Athas_orm]

Sorry Eric did I do something wrong. Actually I'm pretty sure from what I've read in the past I could "label" you according to my labels above :P

Still don't know how much time you put into it though.

[Nicole]

What would you consider as the definitions of "serious hobiest" and "moonlighter"?

Does serious hobiest mean you don't make money? Does moonlighter mean that you take on actual jobs as opposed to say earning money through print sales, etc?

Just curious how you'd define them before I lump myself in with a lot

[Jim Poor]

Easy. Full time pro. 100% of my income comes from photography.

[Athas_orm]

Originally Posted by Nicole

What would you consider as the definitions of "serious hobiest" and "moonlighter"?

Does serious hobiest mean you don't make money? Does moonlighter mean that you take on actual jobs as opposed to say earning money through print sales, etc?

Those were just illustration levels really. I just was trying to show what I meant by the level.

Moonlighting, in this context, means to me you've another job but your income is suplemented in a fairly serious way by photography. I.e. its not your primary income.

Serious hobbiest to me probably doesn't make much money they do it for the fun of it. But still have the expense of maintaing the equipment.

Originally Posted by Nicole

Just curious how you'd define them before I lump myself in with a lot

You don't have to pick a category just describing makes it much clearer. There are much finer grade levels I know.

I thought the categories made it clearer what I was asking. For instance I'm a professional computer programmer but I sometimes do computer programming as a hobby too. Obviously thats pretty irrelevant to a photography website.

I'm merely making a larger point about stigma in general that the attachment to such marks are subject to futile attempts to live down them.

~Eric

[Nicole]

No worries, makes it clearer I'm definitely not a full time photographer. Some days I'm barely even a hobiest photographer. I'm probably somewhere between a serious hobiest and moonlighter just because I mostly do it for fun, but I'm doing ok from it.

On an average (read: I have everything else I need to get done) sort of day, I probably only put a half hour into it because I'm doing my 365. Sometimes that means I take about 30 seconds and take a shot of something. Other times it means I put in a fairly serious effort to get the shot I want and that can take much longer than a half hour. On other days I might spend a few hours out shooting. But, my money comes from stock photos and prints, so I'm never really doing events. At the moment I seem to be stupidly busy, so most days I'm not spending heaps of time on it, but usually 30-60 minutes a day... which sounds much more like casual hobiest when I put it that way

[candleman]

moonlighter
working hard to build it up to the point i can go part time. Thats still a couple years away as I always like to take the over cautious approach.

i still work full time, but i'm making enough from my work that i dont have to spend my own money on equipment anymore.

mostly portraits, lately been doing a few weddings and events.

[TheDarkReaver]

I'm a level 10 Mage, fear my +1 Stave!

Oh wait, what? Photographer? This is a photography website!?