Photography Courses - Career Prospects

With the explosion of the communication network, the growth of advertising and media and the fashion boom, and digital photography, it has now become a profession with great commercial value. Photos are an essential part in both print and electronic media.
Being a creative medium, photography requires more of inherent talent for success than formal training. However training in photography courses hones the inherent skills and help to shine in this competitive field with various specializations like portraiture, fashion and advertising photography, journalistic photography, wildlife and outdoors photography etc.

Creating a commercial quality photograph requires the skill for choosing and presenting a subject in a way to achieve the maximum effect with the appropriate equipment.

Job in Photography

Press photographers / Photojournalists

• Supply pictures to the national and local press
• Versatile photographs & all kinds of subjects
• They must have journalistic instincts, know what makes a good news picture,
• Write accurate captions, work well with reporters, be quick and often work under difficult conditions.

Feature photography

• Involves telling a story in pictures
• Requires knowledge of the subject
• Cover an entire theme or subject with a set of photographs
• Varied work and leads to assignments at any time and in any place-photographing people at home, or life in foreign parts, or schools at work, anything that makes a story
• Photographers specialise in the photography of wildlife, sports travel, environment etc.
• Work with news reporters or work as free-lancers and take independent assignments on environment, wild life etc.

Editorial Photographers

• Work normally for magazines and periodicals, nearly always as freelancers
• Pictorially illustrates what is written in the article or report
• Work can be varied, depending on the article or report, which needs illustration.

Commercial/ Industrial photographer

• Takes pictures of merchandise, exteriors and interiors of factories, and machinery both indoors and outdoors to be used for company brochures, annual reports, and in advertising and selling
• Main emphasis is on taking pictures for a single company or firm
• Main intention is to make the company's factory, machines or products look good.

Portrait / wedding photographers

• Take pictures of individuals or small groups
• Portrait subjects like pets, children, families, weddings, functions and activities of sports and social clubs
• Increasing demand for portraits in the home, garden or workplace, especially in the case of children's portraits
• Portrait photographers may work for a studio or be self-employed.

Advertising photographs

• Taken by the photographic departments of advertising agencies, by photographic studios, or by freelance photographers
• A large number of photographers do catalogue work, while some studios specialize in 'mail order' photography
• Best paid and most competitive branch; success in this sphere depends entirely on ability, efficiency and the right personality
• Advertising photographers are usually provided with instructions as to what exactly has to be photographed. However they are also expected to suggest their own ideas for new angles.

Fashion photography

• Extremely creative and well paid profession
• Most fashion photography is done by specialist studios or freelancers who are commissioned by fashion houses or advertising agencies
• Work under the direction of a fashion expert
• The bulk of fashion photography is carried out in either Mumbai or Delhi and involves by highly sophisticated and well-equipped studios by freelancers who are commissioned by fashion houses of advertising agencies
• Also find employment with fashion houses, designers, fashion journals and news papers.

Fine arts photographers

• Sell their photographs as fine artwork
• Need technical proficiency, artistic talent and creativity.

Digital photography

• Involves the use of a digital camera
• Images are captured on a disk, floppy or directly on to the computer
• Digital photography is used largely in the media, as digital images can be stored easily and conveyed quickly over long distances.

Nature and Wildlife Photography

• Taking photographs of animals, birds, plants and landscapes
• While photos of rare species are in great demand, nature photographs are also widely used as pictures for calendars or covers
• Romantic sunsets, flowers, trees, lakes and waterfalls, etc, all make interesting subjects for a nature photographer.

Forensic Photography

• Photographing a crime scene from every angle clearly to show detail, with the emphasis on accurately recording the size and distance of objects
• Find employment with law enforcement agencies, police, legal system and in the investigative services of the government and also private detective agencies.