IS GETTING JUST A CD THE BEST IDEA?

A long time ago, I was simply just a hobbyist. I had figured that I’d buy a nice camera, dabble in landscape photography and have some high quality snapshots of friends and family. I enjoyed my hobby and soaked up any knowledge I acquired. I read books, spoke to other photographers, experimented my brains out and put my pictures out for critique. Eventually, someone found out that I had a nice camera and literally said to me, “Hey, you have a nice camera. Wanna take pictures of my family for our Christmas cards?”

“Uhh, sure, I’ll give it a try,” I replied.

For the next week I stressed about the upcoming photo shoot. I had no experience photographing families or anyone for that matter. I was simply a hobbyist who took pictures of landscapes every now and then. I only accepted the job because they offered me $50 or something like that. I was in it for a quick buck and didn’t have a clue what I was doing. The pictures turned out amateurish, as you can imagine, with no creativity, style or quality. I burnt them a CD, collected my $50 and can’t remember the last time I spoke to the family. It’s been a long time.

I started as a hobbyist, eventually was fortunate enough for a mentor to take me under his wing and show me what I have been doing wrong for so long.

There are a lot of hobbyists out there proclaiming themselves as professional photographers. Their story starts off similar to mine but ends very differently. In the professional photography world, we call these hobbyists “shoot and burn photographers.” They show up with their limited equipment and with their limited knowledge, produce a cheap product that doesn’t move or thrill the clients.

Buying a CD of 1000 bad images is never a good idea Here’s Why

The fact of the matter is when a photographer sells you a CD, you are wasting your time and investment. How so? Well, most people who get one of these CDs won’t even bother doing anything special with the images anyway! They might post a few on their Facebook page, maybe on their blog and then the inevitable fate of the CD is sealed when it gets put in a drawer, never to be seen again. Unless of course you like seeing this on your wall:

Ok, so that’s a little extreme and I’m obviously joking but the worst part about this whole process is you may not even like the images you receive. They might be