Interviewing a photographer for class
Like a few in a thread started recently by Richard Boulware before, Ellis is equating professional photography to assigment photography. This might be the safest, most common, or most lucrative way to earn one's living with photography, but it is not the only one.
Interviewing a photographer for class
Exactly. Most professional photographers are commercial assignment photographers, but there are other ways to be a professional.
Some artists (meaning personal project oriented photographers) support themselves with personal work. They are professionals to.
Others do the art work for themselves and the commercial work to pay the bills. How do you know Nick Nixon has never supported himself like this? A lot of famous artists have done so. You just don't hear much about it because the work that they're know for--that's unique to them--is the personal work.
Interviewing a photographer for class
"Others do the art work for themselves and the commercial work to pay the bills. How do you know Nick Nixon has never supported himself like this? A lot of famous artists have done so. You just don't hear much about it because the work that they're know for--that's unique to them--is the personal work."
Stephen Shore has done various magazine assignments - and they seem to win awards whenever he does so in the ASME National Magazine Awards and the other various annual industry awards
Interviewing a photographer for class
I'd suggest that you contact the architecture photographers Stephen Rosenthal or Peter Vandewarker. I studied with Mr. Rosenthal, some years back, and learned a great deal. Mr. Vandewarker is well known for his "Cityscapes of Boston" and his photography of the Big Dig.
As for the (IMHO non-existent) dichotomy between "professionals" and "artists", well, that's a subject for another thread.
Interviewing a photographer for class
If you want somethng a bit different, try Felice Frankel at MIT.
http://web.mit.edu/felicef/
She is responsible for several of the most memorable Science and Nature covers in recent years.