During those couple of days, I slowly began to fill his mind on how the images were done, on how photographers today have to use many different softwares to make hotels and spaces in general look great. I also told him that what he was seeing (me shooting on location) was only about 40% - 50% of ALL that he was paying for. That most of the work was done back in studio (retouching and editing) and he would not see this. Also that a good hotel photographer should be thinking on how his images could be used by the hotel's marketing department. This of course, amazed him.
So this mind changing went on. The last day, during out meeting to select the images, I kindly ask him if he still felt, after seeing my images, that any one could be a photographer. "At this level, of course not" he answered back in Spanish. Even though I was expecting a more exited response, my point came across. Being a profesional photographer is not for everyone that has a camera. And it is not all about knowing how to light a space, it's also about making money, making business, paying taxes and all other matters that a proper business has. And mostly, it's about knowing how important this visual space is to hotels and their marketing needs. Only after combining and being very familiar with all of this is when a photographer can be called a hotel photographer.
By Thiago da Cunha
