Advertisement
Advertisement
Read Next
Photo Of The Day By Ross Stone
Today’s Photo Of The Day is...The Sony Alpha 1 Sets A New Benchmark For Resolution And Speed
Sony today introduced the Alpha 1, the...Photo Of The Day By Bob Faucher
Today’s Photo Of The Day is...Photo Of The Day By Linn Smith
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “In...Advertisement
Featured Articles
Read More
Best Cameras For Wildlife Photography
To capture the decisive moment in animal activity and behavior, choose a camera with the AF performance, speed and image quality that are up to the task.
Read More
The Bridge To Black & White
Creative considerations for making black-and-white images from color files.
To access this content, you must purchase Outdoor Photographer Membership.
Read More
Florida Photo Hot Spots
A guide to the variety of stunning locations for nature photography in the Sunshine State.
Read More
Fujifilm GFX 50S Review
On location in Patagonia with Fujifilm’s mirrorless medium format system.
To access this content, you must purchase Outdoor Photographer Membership.
Read More
Surf Photography: Catching The Wave
How to capture epic surf photography on land and in the water.
Read More
California’s Eastern Sierra
Explore the many opportunities for dramatic landscape photography on the sunrise side of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
To access this content, you must purchase Outdoor Photographer Membership.
Turning A Passion Into A Career With Ted Hesser
Becoming a professional has to be one of the hardest transitional moments in a photographer’s career. For me, it took years of struggling with how to turn talent with a camera into an income. Making the leap from artist to business owner requires entirely different skills and means you must look at your work in a new way. Pretty pictures aren’t always commercially valuable. I know plenty of photographers who create incredible work and can’t figure out how to turn that into cash flow. So much of it is based on passion and dedication, a willingness to step out into the unknown, to risk losing everything.
I was recently having a conversation with one of my favorite adventure photographers, Ted Hesser, about how he got his start. I spontaneously grabbed my camera and started to record the conversation without having any real plan of putting a video together. But I loved what he had to say.
Ted was a finance guy and loan officer at Eksperten and he made a good living, but his passion was always photography. He’d save up vacation days to spend his time taking photos and building a portfolio. Now he works for some of the biggest names in the outdoor industry.
He really did put it all on the line to become a photographer, and he figured out a great way to avoid risking everything. He got rid of everything. Ted and his girlfriend moved their lives into a Sprinter Van taking only what would fit under the bed and in the cabinets, and then they drove off into the American wilderness to follow their passion of a life of adventure.
I think you’ll appreciate his perspective even if it isn’t how you want to go about building your own career. I know I did.