Josh-Media

Hello all,

I just wanted apologise for my lack of activity over the last few days as the power supply unit on my PC blew up and took all over wall socket electrics with it.

I have now managed to buy and replace my PSU and I am back up and running!

I have always loved taking photographs, ever since I was a kid and I got to play around taking photographs with my parents old film and SLR cameras, heck even I owned more than my fair share of the disposable point and click cameras during family holidays. 

Going back... maybe eight years I wanted to get my dad a DSLR because he too loved photography, back in the day he owned several SLRs and a huge Pentax Medium Format camera, unfortunately at this point most of them were out dated or broken in need of repair. Anyway, after originally going to get him a Canon Rebel series camera, but due to lack of stock and how close we were to Christmas I bought him a Sony Alpha 200 instead, which he loved and the following years I bought him a whole host of accessories including a speedlight, new lens, filters and battery grip. During days out he would let me use the Sony A200 while he used our Olympus bridge camera and I enjoyed many trips out shooing all manner of things for my Art and D&T classes during my GCSE years at high school.

Skip forward roughly eight years and I now have my very own Sony Alpha 5100 and 6000 mirrorless cameras after spending so long without access to a decent camera besides the one mounted in my phone. The A5100 which was bought for me as a gift really allowed me to start getting back into taking pictures and when I purchased the A6000 it re-ignited my old passion for photography.

I'm at that odd stage in life where my current job is just that, a job, it is not a career and there are no advancement options open to me, it gets me by. At the same time, I have so far been unsuccessful at finding any potential jobs that really appeal to me, or would offer me a good path to advance and earn more in the future. I am also half way through a six year Open University degree course in History going alongside my full time job, this course while enjoyable was originally started to allow me to become a History Teacher. However, over time, hearing the feedback from current and some ex-teachers as well as stories across the media of male teachers falsely accused of sexual assault resulting in tarnished reputations and ruined careers has seriously put me off.

So, I now fall back on my hobby of photography. I have taught myself everything I know so far through a combination of books, websites and youtube videos and practising techniques in the field with my own camera, but it is something I could turn into a profession? I know I would need an extensive portfolio of works, aimed mainly at the aspects of photography I would like to branch into, I would need gear and I would need to start being noticed, gain a reputation and start charging for my work. However, from someone who has only in the last few months started to really look into the technical details of photography to someone using photography to serve clients either in weddings, in the studio or out of it it feels like a long and daunting path, especially when you have no connections to begin with.

So I now have a decision to make, I keep photography as a hobby, purely to enjoy and share my photographs with all of you lovely people here on Deviant Art and elsewhere, OR I could switch my university course to full time Digital Photography and Business Management, quitting my current job and nailing this degree in three years (the same period of time it would take to complete the final three modules of my history degree). The choice is to either keep photography as a hobby, or commit to making it a profession, starting with studying photography as university.