Pensive

Continued to look through some of the online material referenced in the general course blurb and came across this article - http://www.photoworks.org.uk/blog/post/00000000011 which discusses the democratisation of photography and thereby the risk of the practice of taking and publishing of photographs becoming increasingly distant from "art". I guess this isn't a new discussion at all (although according to this article it's potentially taken the commercial photography world a bit by surprise....?), however it feels strangely pertinent to me as I embark on this degree. I feel like someone who has greatly benefited from the democratisation of photography that is inherent to digitisation - I enjoyed using a 35mm SLR when I was in my teens but found it to be far too expensive, time consuming and error prone to take and process film. Digital capture and processing has opened up creative possibilities and the opportunity to experiment and have confidence in achieving results (the ability to review shots while on location for example), which I never felt were available to me when using film. But here's the thing - I guess by starting on this degree course, I'm saying that I want "in". "In" on the commercial, professional, art world of photography. But it's only because of the democratisation that I feel like I can even try to get "in". And so I wonder how possible that will be. What barriers to entry will present themselves? How many of them will be presented by my own inadequacies, how many by my own insecurities, but also how many by the professional world which may be reluctant to really let the commoner in?