How did you decide to go pro or semi pro

I'm interested to hear peoples stories on what prompted them to make their hobby into a business or part time business. I always admire people who take up a challenge and i'm sure there must be some great stories on here.

What steps did you make ?

Pro's and Con's ?

And if you were to do it again, what would you do differently ?

Grant

Good thread! I'm interested too

I guess one of the reasons is that people enjoy it so much and consider themselves lucky they can earn a living from something they love doing - their ideal job

Sorry if it's been asked before, forgot to search topics. Yes Azz, i agree very lucky indeed if you can make the move, just wan't to know what made them make it

I haven't really thought through going semi pro (I would never go full time - I enjoy the dog training too much!)
But with all the dogs I have around taking pohots has been a bit of an obsession since I moved back to Cornwall and took over Mums 3.1mp Sony Cybershot.
Its kind of escalated out of control....I have a couple of people who want some nice shots done of thier dogs......and one who wanted it for a birthday pressie for someone...At the moment I am happy to do it almost at cost to get more experience....we'll see where it leads! [watch this space]

Must be nice to take pictures for a living I could not do it as I love my dog walking too much but I do get to combine both dog walking and photography to capture some good shots of the dogs playing and I always let my clients know if I have uploaded any pictures of their dogs so they can view them and get free copies of the originals if they want.

Many have taken me up on the offer so i must be taking some good pictures

i'm in the position where i am lucky enough to go pro.

I used to work for an engineering company in the lab, i was only there part time but seemed to spend more of my time there anyway as work was never completed which meant i had to stay longer and longer to get things done. The joys of working your ass off when no one else was! Anyways after a bust up with the big boss man, i eventually decided to hand in my notice and look for something else.

I was getting requests for photography so i then deicided to stop working for other people, every job i had i always clashed with one boss or another and usually ends up with me storming out of their office.

I started by registering my business name, and taking my time to set out a website and advertising and i am gradually building up my portfolio. The first year has been really tough, but things are gradually picking up and i know next year will be a million times better than this year as all the hard work of collecting the right gear and the setting up is done, i just have to promote myself a lot more, and take any job i can get my hands on.

The biggest buzz so far is when my client from the wedding in may ordered his wedding photos and they are here today!! and the buzz i get when i see them is fantastic (too a long time as they couldn;t choose which ones they wanted LOL).

That's exactly the kind of story i was hoping to hear it must encourage lots of people to do the same.

It usually starts out with a hobby and as one gets more involved the interest increases to a point where a hobby turns into a full or part time business. Thats how we ended up owning a boarding kennels and cattery from initially just owning a dog.

Bazza

Must admit if I could get good enough it may be something I fancy doing in the future. Going to take some photo's of someones Bulldog on Wednesday as they saw the NSDTR photo's that I did a couple of weeks ago and they want me to do some to put on a website.

I went Whippet racing the oither day.....for the practice - but when I;d sorted oiut the pictures I did a basic price list and My friend took it to the next meet they had....8 orders YEAH!!!! I am now really worried that they won't be impressed with the results .