I work as a freelance event photographer. I mainly shoot events for corporate clients but I also do events for regular people as well as the odd portrait job or some other small thing for existing clients.

Days vary wildly, I don't think I've ever had a similar day ever. For some very odd reason work usually comes in bunches, like 4-5 big gigs over the span of 3-4 days and then 1-2 weeks of no gigs.

What's it like to live off of your pictures?

It kind of feels like you're not doing work, like your a bum or someone without a proper job, since most of the time regular people are at work I'm at home surfing reddit, doing paperwork & trying to get more work. Then, sometimes, it's idiotically hectic like this week has been. I've slept around 4-5 hours the last two nights and worked the rest of the time I've been awake. Just came home from the last gig of this "bunch" and I've now got 4 000 images to sort, edit & send off (hopefully by days end).

How do you go about paying for all the equipment?

I started working professionally with the equipment I had when I was still more of an amateur, I haven't bought everything at once but slowly over the past 6+ years. Now that I use my cameras a lot they're more like tools to me than anything else, I now prefer using things I'm used too that the best I can. I also think more economically when buying things. I don't buy new equipment just because I want too, but either because something broke, "I need X to do job Y, X and Z", or some other reason which would result in more money or in me being able to do the current jobs I do.

What did it take to get where you are?

Stupidity in buying my first camera and getting interested in photography, naivity that I could actually make it as one, stubbornness to brush off everyones opinion that I needed to get a real job when I was starting out, and constantly doing the best job you can no matter how small the gig is.

Photography isn't a job where one day you're you and the next day you're a photographer. It's something you slowly become, some photographers decide to make a career out of it, other just prefer it as a hobby.

Do you recommend photography?

If you ask this question, then I won't recommend it. It's something that will come naturally if you want to do it enough, anyone you ask will just tell you that you shouldn't so you shouldn't ask the question if you want a positive answer.

It has it's positive days and it's negative days. You have to be emotionally pretty strong, there are a lot of days when you feel like shit and think you've made the wrong career choice, that you're actually a shit photographer and that you charge too much and you'll be out of work next month and then there'll be other days when you feel like you own the world.

IMO an important trait photographers need to have is that you shouldn't worry too much about the future or about things cocking up so to say. If you constantly worry about things then you're entire life as a photographer will be full of stress. You're always looking at "an empty calendar", always waiting for the next job not knowing when it is or what it'll be. But once you get enough clients that trust you and have hired you for a few gigs you get a good baseline of people who call you a couple times a year for something and then you're pretty set.