to people who tried to make a living as a photographer

sfaust wrote in post #12967968
And this is where a successful photographer can make the difference. Avoid those clients, and go after clients that do know photography, understand what good photography is, and know it costly in the end.

If you shoot portraits or weddings for example, you will be competing with those just trying to make money for new equipment. You'll also face those clients that have no idea what it really takes to run a photography business, and want to pay department store portrait prices.

But if you step it up, take the time to really learn the harder skills, and focus on a market that pays well, you can be successful and do very well. Ie, for example something like high speed photography. You need a $100K camera, it shoots 180K frames a second, very specialized, and your competition won't be amateurs, but working professionals also trying to make a decent livining and recover real overheads costs. Pricing will be more realistic in the end.

You can rent the camera, learn how to shoot it, create a portfolio, target potential clients, invest in marketing, advertising, portfolio development, etc, and end up making $5K per day for your skills. Thats an honest attempt at making it a business IMO.