I was scrolling through TikTok the other day to get some video and photo inspiration. As I was sitting on the couch I got lost going down that rabbit hole and came across a video of one of the photographers I follow. She started off explaining presets and which ones she likes to use/why. Then she moved on to editing and she made a statement that honestly rubbed me the wrong way. "If you do this it looks amateur!"
I WAS SHOCKED!
Now let me take a second to break something down.
The definition of "amateur", according to Merriam Webster, is:
a person who engages in a pursuit, especially a sport, on an unpaid rather that a professional basis.
The definition of "professional", also according to Merriam Webster, is:
1.of, relating to, or characteristic of a profession
2.engaged in on of the learned professions
NOT ONE of those definitions talks about technical style, how much knowledge, or how many years one has in the business! It is all about whether or not you are being paid, that's my interpretation of it.
In both videography and photography there are so MANY different things to learn! I do better with outdoor lighting because that's how I started, where others do better with controlled lighting inside. I do better in photoshop and adobe bridge editing because Lightroom wasn't out when I first started, where as others do better with Lightroom!
GUESS WHAT?!
That is OK! NO single person knows everything that there is to know! Moral of the story is look at the definition of the word before you start calling it amateur. Everyone is learning, even you and I bet you still learn by doing this for FREE!
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