Do you ever think about hiring a professional photographer to take your picture?

Whether a photographer is a "professional" or not is not the most important thing. Whether the photographer has talent is the real question. There are a lot of "professional" photographers who don't know squat. Fortunately I have a good friend who is extremely talented AND is not a professional so I don't have to pay him. His specialty is capturing live action under harsh stage lighting conditions. He is a genius at it. I do not have the time to learn from him, but the two things I have caught onto in his method are:

1. Use the very best equipment you can afford and learn how it works.

2. Take millions of pictures and throw the vast majority away.

I have used him for a family portrait which we had put on a throw. It was nice, but his best work I have seen is always live performance. I think it is true of photographers that they may be very talented in one kind of photography and not so much in another. I don't think I would use him for a sit still and pose portrait again, but if I was working on stage I wouldn't hesitate to use him. I have in fact been thinking of having him take a series of photographs of me as various characters I perform as and then using them to help advertise my services. If I decide to have some more portrait photography there is another person I would hire to do it. If you are looking for a photographer look at a lot of their work and find if they do the type of photography you want well. Don't assume because they are good at one type they can do anything. For instance a GREAT wedding photographer might suck at corporate imaging and so on. Think of a photographer as an artist and find one that has the style you need. Of course if you are extremely beautiful, which I am sure you are, then any photographer will do. I however need all the help I can get.

Unfortunately, too many people think of photography as "point and shoot". I actually showed up for a group interview for photographers (fan portraits for a national league team, and they were offering training... so you can only imagine the range of characters that showed up) and I asked one guy if he had any photography experience and he said "No, but you just point it and shoot it, how hard can it be?".

I have been trying to learn all I can about photography and be able to make a living at it, but I'll go to my daughter's dance perfomance and one of the "dance moms" has a bigger, newer camera than mine with a much nicer lens and "all the trappings". And the thing is, she doesn't even use most of her equipment...

Anyway, there are still plenty of people out there who know the value of a good photographer and are willing to pay for one. There's always weddings, professional headshots and stock images among other things.

No, I just put the camera on a tripod, set the self timer, and start singing "anything you can do, I can do better"