For those that keep asking...

Are you a professional photographer?

No,  I pretend to be one though :)

Do you plan on ever being one?

Though I don't admit to it, in the back of my mind I do secretly wish too eventually.  Who knows what may happen but I'm having a good time trying!

What's stopping me from trying?

Lots of things!  Fear, skills, talent, taxes, etc...

Fear of failure!  I have a beautiful wife and kids of whom I am the sole supporter financially.  My personal success or failure determines whether they have feast or famine.  I don't mind starving myself a little for my dreams (I could stand to lose a few pounds anyways), but I must set these dreams aside from their reality.  They are the most important things in my life, far more than my camera.

One of these days I really want to do this, but I want to do it right!  It's going to be hard, probably one of the hardest things I'll ever do.

I refuse to be the dreaded mom/guy with camera, the bottom feeders of the photography industry.  You know the type I'm speaking of, the ones who get a dslr and two weeks later they call themselves pro by just adding the word photography to the end of their name.  They charge so little money they might as well be paying you to take your photos.

How do they do it?  I'll tell you! they don't pay their taxes, they don't properly register themselves as businesses to their local governments, they invest less time in developing their skills than the cost of their equipment.  They use software illegally to process your images.  They have the images you paid for developed at Wal-mart (if that).

They almost always fail quicker than start.

These people hurt the industry.  In this economy it's easy for the consumer to be so blindly by the price that they can not see the quality they are getting.  All too often I see Brides/Grooms spending thousands of dollars on their outfit, catering, entertainment, etc.  All these things they spend 1000's of dollars on for one day, but they always spend the least on the least on they one thing that will last them a lifetime, their wedding images.

I love studying wedding photography, there is an insane amount of skill involved in good wedding photography.  But I personally refuse to do wedding photography.  Why?  There's no do over's, you get it right once or you get nothing!

Why am I saying all this?

I want to get it right.  I want to be able to pull off the lofty goal feeding my family as a photographer  all while paying my taxes, business expenses, overhead, equipment without going into debt. I need to learn to be a good business man while being an even better photographer.

because it's all I think about!  I no longer look outside and think, "man it's bright out here!".  It's more like "man, the sky is 5 stops lighter than every thing else"  People are reaching for their sunglasses while I'm reaching for a graduated neutral density filter.  I lay awake at night planning out my ideal photo shoots in my head.

When I'm not dreaming up my ideal photoshoot, I'm reading the latest how-tos to better my skills.  When I'm not reading the latest how-to's I'm looking at other peoples images to figure out how they did it.  When I'm not pouring over other peoples images, I'm researching gear to accomplish those shots I just poured over.

I could go on and on.

It's a disease that I hope is never cured :)