Originally posted by kooks It depends of the terminology.. a professional is a person that do a certain job as a profession.. but it doesnt mean that the job is great, ofcourse we can assumed that because this person do it as a profession the job will have to be better than the average people, but thats not the case all the time. Same as for example soccer players and amateur players, there are some great great players that play just for fun, that doesnt make them professionals, on the other hand, if they play and most of their income comes from this ( even if they are not so good ) it makes them professional or... pros.
According with Wikipedia:
The reason most people would go with the "making money" definition is that it's impossible to access and grade levels of expertise. Browse the internet (Flickr, e.g.) and you will find:
1) People who are utterly amazing and do it all as a hobby.
2) People who are utterly amazing and make a good living on their talent.
3) People who are pretty lousy and do it all as a hobby.
4) People who are pretty lousy and somehow find people to pay them to take these miserable photos. Sometimes a lot of people pay them.
You'd be amazed at how many of #4 there are. They make money, do photography as a living but are inferior to many hobbyists I've seen. Are they professionals? They still are, even though they suck.
In the case of photography, it is often more inconvenient to be considered a professional if you're not doing it for money. Example: many landmarks have a policy against professional photography. I've been asked if I am a pro several times simply because I'm taking photos with something other than a cell phone. But they don't care how good you are. They care whether you are making money.