Did You Decide... 'I want to be a photographer'?

Photographers (and non-photogs alike)... I'd quite like to hear a bit about how you ended up where you are. Don't worry I'm not requesting a life story, but I'm wondering if it was ever your decision to be a photographer (or other) and you just went and perused it?


I've reached an interesting point in my life. I'm 18, I've just finished school, got good qualifications and now have a year to travel and properly decide what route I'm taking.
I'm in a bittersweet predicament that I would love to peruse many different career paths.. but don't know which one?!
These include photographer, cinematographer, graphic designer, editor, journalist. (congrats to me for picking overly ambitious careers!)

Maybe you can remember back when you were in a similar position? Or maybe it happened to you at a older age. But was there a moment when you thought 'this is what I want to do', or did it just happen organically?

I'd love to hear! Thanks, Ben

See the links in this: General Info

At your age I decided I wanted to be a photographer, and started to work towards it.
I got through 6 months at tafe, it started costing too much, so I dropped out and got a job doing security work, after a while I bought a 350d, learnt as much as I could by playing with the camera, and reading everything I could on POTN.
I shot a lot of Motorsport as a hobby, and gradually morphed it into a part time business, worked for a school photo company, fixed cameras for a 2 years, and 10 years after I left school, finally managed to land my dream job, a full time staffer at a Newspaper.
I'm still learning everyday, and we have a crew of good shooters, who are happy to help each other out. My photography keeps improving, I have had this job 3 years and I am embarrassed looking back at some of my early work, stuff I thought was good, I now know I can do so much better, and look forward to going to work every day

And while I'm here, I would like to thank everyone on POTN for answering my stupid questions, critiquing my pics, and helping me get to where I am now

If you want your dream job, work for it, you will get there eventually.
it took me 10 years to get mine !

I want to do it full time when I retire, in 30 years. i picked up the camera in a serious fashion about a year ago and started getting paid for taking pictures. I used a camera but nothing more than full auto mode for 5 years previous, but then I decided I wanted to get into it more, more for taking nice pictures of my family. But, the only way to make this a job when I retire (because i'm not counting on my retirement accounts to be intact when I actually retire), is to learn early and improve over the years. Better to learn now and hone my craft than to wait until I"m 60 something and it'll be too late. And who knows, maybe in 10 years I'll be making more money doing photography and could retire from my full time job all together....