Overall, the problem (as he sees it) is that you won't have a business because you won't have quality photos on the site (because you'll have "hobbyists" puttin

Overall, the problem (as he sees it) is that you won't have a business because you won't have quality photos on the site (because you'll have "hobbyists" putting photos on there). Maybe just find some forums / blogs that cater towards "prosumer"-type photographers...the kind of people that buy high-end equipment, are really into the art, etc. -- but that might only be doing it for the fun (until they realize they have the opportunity to make a few bucks for doing nothing except submitting their best photos to your website). As an aside, maybe you can have some kind of rating system whereby photos can be rated by (and only by) other photographers who have submitted photos to the website; photographer-users would only be able to see their rating of a photo (not the aggregate rating), but the aggregate would determine it's place in "top {N} in {CATEGORY}" lists and the price that was charged for the photo. Anyway, to answer your question...if you believe you've acquired enough domain knowledge to build a successful business, then I think you should go for it...otherwise, you'll always be second-guessing yourself and wondering if you threw a fortune away because someone else told you not to go through with it.