A good photographer enjoys his or her pictures and also brings pleasure to other people.
They might ask to print it, give it as a gift, or post it on their social networks. Or they might just say “wow.
A sure sign is that you’ll be asked to take pictures. And they may even offer you money for it, and you’ll be very surprised. In competitions, your pictures might win some places, but it’s not always necessary.
So, what you have to do:
Pick up any kind of camera and start shooting.
Tame the light, understand how to use it.
Learn to feel the composition that suits the moment. It won’t always be a classic composition. Know the additional composition techniques that make a photograph more interesting. And also to keep in mind the semantic center and the general idea of the picture.
Learn your technique, your manual settings, and semi-automatic modes, and forget about “auto” mode.
To look at other good pictures and analyze how they were made, in light, composition, technique, conception, weather, perspective, and so on. And also attend master classes of photographers you like.
Learn to process photos in any graphics editor, not only with built-in filters, but also manually. A basic knowledge of editing is enough. Adobe Lightroom, or even its free mobile version, may be enough (here is a lesson on processing in mobile Lightroom).
A professional photographer is a photographer who gets paid for taking pictures, that is, photography becomes his profession.
If a photographer can take tasty pictures on a smartphone and people buy them from him, that’s a professional photographer.
If a photographer has $10,000 worth of equipment, but shoots in automatic mode and gets one good photo out of 100 and doesn’t really understand how it came out, that’s just a photographer.
If he gets a lot of good pictures, and among them there are some stunning ones, and the photographer consciously pressed the shutter button, that’s a good photographer.
But if photography doesn’t make him money, he’s just a good, great photographer, but not a professional one.
And then there are photographers who take average quality and below average photos and know how to sell it. These are also professional photographers.
There is no measure of skill in the term “professional.” It’s just a measure of whether or not a photograph makes money.