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You can have all the hobbies you want. But undercharging for hobby work does fuck over the actual photographers.
Everyone is looking for an amazing hobbiest to shoot their wedding and beating the fuck out of the professionals doing it for a living because they want a couple of grand for a solid week of work.
Seriously, just ask the people attending the wedding to send pictures to you, people would love to help.
My wife has been doing professional work for years, over the past decade or so, drastically more clients browbeat her mercilessly to the point that she has to fire them. What do you mean you need $200 to come to my house and do headshots, it’s only worth $25.
If you have offers for $25 you should take them. Her stuff is really good, they know they don’t want the $25 they’re just not willing to pay a living wage to get it.
I think the bigger issue causing that is cameras on phones have devalued photographs in general. Many people really don’t understand what goes into the good photographs and think it’s as easy as their selfies. And it’s bullshit that people treat your wife that way.
most people have no idea what good photograph is. they share blurry shit with terrible composition on instagram and think that is good photograph, because their 10 friends told them so (and they returned the favor and everyone is happy how amazing photographers they all are)
Consumer digital, in general, closed off a large portion of the pro market. In the before times, you would hire a photographer because you needed something better than a Polaroid and couldn’t trust some rando with a cheap film camera to get everything right. Once you could see what you were getting instantly, you had good enough pictures for anything not selling something or hanging on your wall meant to evoke emotion.
Not only phone cameras, but AI post-processing. The real raw images on those itty-bitty sensors are still pretty bad, but they do a great job of correction now. And the stuff from the past 4-5 years, with erasing things and generating smart fill, is freaking awesome.