What Makes A Professional

What Makes A Professional

by William Lulow

Had an interesting couple of shoots recently (over the last couple of weeks) that started me thinking about what constitutes a “professional” in almost any field. One of the major requirements is that a professional needs to be able to produce the same or similar results just about every time. If you call a plumber to fix a leak, say, it shouldn’t matter what kind of faucet or appliance is involved. For the plumber, it should represent using the same tools but applying them as the situation demands. Same for an electrician or any other craftsman.

I was called on to make some images of a new band at a club here in New Jersey. This was the first time I had made photographs at this venue, so I knew it would be a little different from the one I had been used to shooting in for the past several years up in Beacon, NY. I knew what I had to do. I had to test the lighting conditions to make sure my exposures were right on the mark. The old club was fairly dimly lit and called for using a higher ISO number so that I could shoot at a decent lens aperture. This new club, however, was much more brightly lit. The stage lights were much better and consequently I was able to shoot at a much lower ISO number and a faster shutter speed. These were made at ISO 1600, f/7.1 @ 1/125th of a second. Here are a couple of images from that gig:

I used both cameras so that I could use my prime lenses one after the other to get closeups as well as full stage shots. So, it was a case of applying the same techniques to a different venue, but being careful to notice the differences and adjust my shooting accordingly to achieve the same result. That’s what professionals do. They can be relied on time after time to produce the same results.

As a matter of fact, if you have images that are “flashes in the pan,” or “one shot miracles,” and you’re not sure if you can duplicate them when called upon to do so, they probably shouldn’t be in your portfolio or on your website.

Here’s another example of a shot I did of a young child on location at her parents’ home:

Here I used my typical set up of two small umbrellas to light the background (to make sure it reproduced white), and my large umbrella as a mainlight. This is a setup that I can use in almost any situation to produce this kind of image. I can do it EVERY TIME!

It also makes me think of what my brother has said over and over about musicians. You know that someone is a good musician when he/she doesn’t have to look at what they’re doing to make the sound right. Maybe it can be said about chefs as well. A professional chef knows, maybe instinctively what ingredients to use to produce a certain taste in foods. They don’t need to look at recipes. I’m always amazed at how many times I have to look at a recipe when I’m cooking. Guess what? I’m not a professional chef! I love to cook, but many times I don’t have the “feel” for making certain types of dishes. Other times, like when I make chocolate chip cookies, for instance, I never have to look at the recipe because I’ve made them so many times.

And here is the kind of image I guess I’m most known for, a studio portrait:

If you have looked at any images on my website, you will know that I have trained many years for doing shots like this and can probably do them in my sleep. So when someone books me for a job like this, they can be assured that the result will be just like this. Even though many people say that a “professional” is one who makes the major part of his or her living from the ability to perform like this, for me, the ability alone, is what makes someone professional!