I’m a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell. In his book, the Outliers, he mentioned that to succeed in your field, you need to spend 10000 hours honing that skill. I have no idea how he arrived at that number but in his analysis of successful people, that seemed to be the common denominator. The greatest athletes, entrepreneurs, musicians and scientists emerge only after spending that number of hours in their field.

I was told by another photographer that a client joked with him that since he had the same equipment as my friend, he should be charging the same thing. Although in jest, that might be the way he perceived my friend’s work, forgetting that the camera doesn’t make the man.

I sometimes come across people in a wedding shoot having a ‘bigger and better’ camera than mine and they perhaps feel that they’re ‘better’ than the professional photographer. Funny how people think that the camera determines the level of competency. I can think of this analogy, if you have the same pot as a chef, does that make you one? Or if you buy the same racquet as Roger Federer, you’re on way to the Grand Slams. People seem to think that photography bucks this trend.

Going back to Malcolm’s 10000 hour rule:

Assuming we spend the 8 hours a day shooting, processing, editing, critiquing, teaching, researching and doing any other things related to photography,

10000 hours = 1250 days

Assuming we spend 7 days a week working:

1250 = 178.5 weeks
178.5 weeks = 3 years 3 months

Many of us have been in this field more than 3 years so we have achieved a level of competency described by Malcolm.

Now if you know someone with all that equipment and shoots only on Saturdays, will he have the experience and competency that professional photographers have? 10,000 hours of Saturdays is a very long time.

Having deep pockets and buying all the expensive glass doesn’t say much about the skill, does it? The less time you spend worrying about equipment, the more time you have actually shooting. And that sets apart the people who make money from photography and those who don’t.