[mel]

This has been an interesting thread to me due to my "profession." I am, in my regularly paid job, a librarian. The minimum qualification for the "professional" position in libarary land is a Master's degree in the field, which I hold. When I was in grad school, the internet was starting to come into it's own and all the gloomers and doomers were saying this profession, and libraries as a whole would soon go away.

It's funny. The public library where I work has been busier than ever. We have adapted our skill set and our services to meet the changing needs of the public we serve and wow lookee, we're still around. I even had one patron come in and proceed to bash libraries and librarians, calling us obsolete dinosaurs, then ask me to find some information for him. Hello.

The stock photography business may be forever changed, but photography as a profession will not survive or die based on the stock photography business alone. As long as there is a market for images, there will be a market for those who can produce specific images on demand. I don't by any means consider myself a professional, but when I have been paid to shoot, it's been a particular thing at a particular time for a particular purpose (and I am doing so again on Monday!). They have been one opportunity, get it right the first time, situations.

But I guess I'm just one of those upstart amatuers with a nice camera.