If you’re an amateur photographer looking to go pro, finding clients is often a difficult task. Snapm aims to make it easier by offering comparison shopping to people looking for high quality photography by amateur photographers.

It may have never occurred to you to hire a photographer for any reason before because it was always so expensive to hire a professional, and inconvenient to find an amateur. But Snapm opens the doors to the idea of hiring an affordable amateur photographer…

To get listed in the searches, you need to sign up for the service and create a portfolio, which looks like this:

Snapm embraces the startup mantra of “release early, release often”, so many of the features offered aren’t very polished yet. For example, while search returns a list of photographers near you, you cannot currently filter or sort by rate or reviews. However, if Snapm does begin to take off, it might become a great way to land your next gig.

(via Lifehacker)

Job portal careercast recently released a ranking of 200 jobs from best to worst for 2010. The Wall Street Journal republished the data in a nice, sortable chart as its Best and Worst Jobs 2010 list. Since you’re reading this, you probably want to know how jobs involving photography rank on the list. The answer: pretty low.

The job “photographer” ranks 126th on the list, right below “waiter/waitress” and right above “advertising salesperson”. “Photojournalist” is near the bottom of the list, ranked #189 below “firefighter” and above “butcher”.

In terms of the methodology used, five categories are evaluated and summed up: environment, income, outlook, stress and physical demands.

I think the methodology is flawed because of the fact that they focus primarily on tangible upsides and downsides. Many photographers I’ve spoken to chose photography as a career for reasons including a passion for photography and the opportunity to see the world. These things aren’t accounted for in the study, since they don’t have categories such as “job satisfaction”.

What do you think of these rankings? If you disagree, what should photography-related jobs actually be ranked?

(via A Photo Editor)