Photographic Dreaming

Someday, I plan to be a professional photographer. Not an enthusiastic amateur (lover), not a practiced novice, not a pro-sumer, but a real, live photographer. Interestingly, I don't yet know what kind of photogrpaher I want to be. Fine art? Maybe. Portrait? It's possible. Wedding? Not even. Something else? Who knows?

If I end up doing anything client-based (Fine art, portrait, etc), I'll need not only a good picture-taking and photo-editing setup (camera and "darkroom" aka computer), I'll also need a good printing setup. Currently, I print mostly at school, on professional-grade Epson printers.

I'm dreaming today. Just for fun, I hopped on to store.apple.com and configured the biggest, best, most expensive Mac Pro I could possibly want or need. It includes two quad-core procesors, 32GB of RAM, and four 1TB internal hard drives with RAID. Also included was the cost of Aperture (I'd have to have that, Photoshop, Lighroom, and other toys installed, of course) and two, count-em, TWO 30" cinema HD displays, and, of course, AppleCare. Grand total?

$18,000 of post-production BLISS. Let's not forget a printer, though, for these lovingly exposed, beautifully processed photos. How about a professional-grade Epson. We'll stick to the medium size, to be reasonable. ;)  The new 7900 should do, at a nice, round $4,000 or so. Add in a roll of paper for around $135 and a set of 11 inks at $85 a pop (that's another $935 for you counting at home).

Well, we just can't let the printer cost more than the camera, can we? Let's not fuss about an external flash (I have one, but it's by no means top-of-the-line), or studio equipment. Let's assume I'm going to go raw (pun intended) and hold the world in the palm of my hand with a mid-range professional Canon. How about the new Canon 5D Mark II? Looks good to me, though still less expensive than the printer, at only $2700. But let's not forget a modest lens set, maybe one at each zoom range? Wide, portrait, and telephoto?At roughly $1500 each (actually, the mid-range is more like $1000), we've definitely surpassed the cost of that fancy Epson.

Well, barring the assistant I'd undoubtedly need to run all this equipment, or at the very least the cost of a good nanny, we're looking at a solid $30,000 investment for a top-end computer, a mid-range printer and camera, and nevermind accessories.

I guess I'll be doing this the hard way a little while longer.