In today’s article, we will consider what services are in demand in the modern market, what kind of work a photographer is in general, and what vacancies are especially relevant for a photographer.
Very different people come to me for photography courses, who are united by one thing – a passion for photography. Not everyone comes to learn how to photograph in order to become a professional photographer and earn money for what they love. But in the process of training, each amateur photographer wakes up a craving for one or another type of photography, which sometimes transforms into a serious hobby or even a profession.
Staff Photographers
When you go to college as a photographer, you are very blurry about your future profession. But a beginner photographer who has received a specialized education in the specialty of “photographer” usually needs to do an internship or internship in a photo studio, agency, publishing house, print center or other company associated with the services of a photographer. Therefore, we will start our review with the vacancies for in-house photographers.
1. Studio Photographer
A studio photographer is a photographer who shoots in a studio. These include:
- photo studios that rent out halls and photographic equipment and conduct photo sessions in a turnkey studio;
- copy centers that print photos for documents, retouch photographs and provide various photo services.
Photo studios with interior locations and professional equipment are often discovered by commercial photographers, and in their free time the studio is rented out to colleagues. The studio administrator is usually a novice photographer who helps the guests to set the light and trains himself in shooting when there is an idea, a model and a free hour. In addition to renting, photo studios offer turnkey photo shoots, which, as a rule, include preparing and creating an image, renting clothes, making up, hairstyle, renting a hall, photographing, ready-made photographs in author’s processing and detailed retouching.
A full-time photographer here can work as a studio administrator who conducts this turnkey photography or organizes the shooting process and is an assistant to the photographer on such shootings.
Copy centers also need photographers, since among the photo services of such centers there are often documentary photography, photo retouching and printing of various photographic materials. This is more technical work than creative – this must be taken into account when choosing a place of work and correlated with the specifics of your own character.
2. Corporate Photographer
A corporate photographer is a photographer who works in a company and takes pictures at all its events: presentations, conferences, corporate events. To work as a corporate photographer, you need to have a good command of the reporting genre of photography, be able to be invisible, get along well with people, catch good angles and quickly process a large amount of photos, so that the next day the company can publish a fresh photo report from the event.
3. Sports Photographer
This is another side of the reportage photographer’s work, which has its own specifics: huge long lenses, continuous shooting, intuition for that very hot moment. This, of course, is not a job for a beginner, but if you like filming sports, you can always start with yard or junior games, where the intensity of passions is no less, and sometimes even more, than in professional sports.
4. Photo Journalist
A photojournalist is a photographer who takes pictures of socially important events for the media or news agencies. In peacetime, these can be photos from exhibitions, concerts, rallies, press conferences. But photojournalists are especially in demand in hot spots where military clashes are taking place and there may be casualties. Such reporters often receive prizes and awards for their photographs taken with great skill and risk to their lives.
5. Freelance Photographers
Most of the photographers in the modern service market do not work in the staff of some agency or studio, but for themselves, that is, they are freelancers. The specifics of the work of a self-employed photographer is that the mode of the day, the cost of an hour of photography and the calendar of filming is formed based on the demand for this photographer as a specialist. And, unlike a full-time photographer, to whom the management of the task descends from above, a freelancer constantly needs to look for customers in order to earn good money and constantly develop.
6. Portrait Photographers
Portrait photographer is a generalist who photographs people. In a narrow sense, a portrait photographer is a photographer who takes single portraits: art or business, women or men. The specificity of the profession of a portrait photographer in working with a model in the frame, liberating a person in front of the camera, revealing his individuality, awakening light in his eyes. Therefore, when shooting portraits, it is very important to be able to communicate with people, to push for emotions, make you smile, joke, and create a relaxed and trusting atmosphere during shooting.
It is also important to understand why people need their own photos: to remember themselves at a certain age, to feel themselves in the moment, to understand and love themselves, to reveal new facets of their appearance, to share photos with loved ones, publish on a dating site, replenish a portfolio or resume, create new image, update your avatar in social networks or hang it in a frame above the bed. Knowing why a client needs photography will help you better understand how to attract and retain customers.
7. Wedding Photographer
Wedding photographer is one of the most sought-after photographers in the photography market. Despite the fact that now almost every wedding guest has his own camera in his pocket (even on a phone), a professional wedding photographer is an integral part of the holiday and a serious item in the holiday budget. With the advent of visual social networks (such as Instagram), professional photography not only did not devalue, but even added in price.
And since now wedding photos are created not so much for family photo albums and relatives as for publication on social networks, where your former classmates and friends who did not attend the wedding will see you, the requirements for the quality of photos are increasing unreasonably. Therefore, there is serious competition among wedding photographers, despite the high workload and seasonality of this business.
In addition to shooting newlyweds during the wedding day, wedding photographers very often shoot Love Story – a couple photo session of lovers. Here you need to be able not only to catch good moments, but also to tune the couple to certain emotions, so that they do not hesitate to show their feelings in front of the photographer.
8. Family Photographer
Family photographer is a photographer who takes family portraits. Families are different, so family photographers should be able to shoot both an elderly couple and a family in anticipation of a baby, and young parents with a newborn, and families with older children, and even entire family clans. When there are several people in the frame, you need to take care of making them look harmonious together: think over the style and choose clothes according to the color wheel.
Families love to shoot both outdoors and, in the studio, so a photographer needs to know how to use studio equipment and be familiar with beautiful natural locations for family photography. It will also be useful to learn how to shoot families at home, although not every apartment is the perfect backdrop for family filming. In addition, you must be able to communicate with models, create a story between the participants in the shooting,
9. Child Photographer
A child photographer is a photographer who photographs children. Children’s photographers are divided into those who shoot only newborns, preschoolers or schoolchildren for general photos and graduation albums. Of course, there are specialists of a wide profile, but it is better to find your own niche and develop in it, since shooting newborns requires a lot of experience and a large collection of props for Newborn filming.
Relations with kindergartens and schools also take years to develop. Therefore, it is better to determine as accurately as possible with the audience you want to shoot and develop in this direction. If you have mainly children from one to seven years old in your portfolio, then parents of preschoolers will be drawn to you. If you mainly have photos of newborns, then you are a narrow specialist in this area and, accordingly, you can be entrusted with your baby.
10. Lifestyle Photographer
Lifestyle photographer is a photographer who shoots in a lively, natural style, without posing and feigned emotions. Such an Instagram photographer. Now there is a trend towards naturalness in blogs, which is why lifestyle photography has become so popular.
Many bloggers cannot cope on their own and hire photographers to create photo content. The specificity of such filming is that at one time you need to think over and implement many images and locations in order for the content to last for a long time.
11. Environmental Photographers
Usually, beginner photographers begin to shoot everything around. Taking pictures of the around world (surroundings) is a popular hobby among photographers. It is difficult to make money in this category, but if you try hard and become the best or the best in your genre, you can make good money by doing what you love.
12. Landscape Photographer
A landscape photographer is a photographer who enjoys capturing nature. To succeed in this genre, you need to have good technique: in addition to good lenses, preferably a drone (if not a helicopter) for aerial photography and an aqua box for underwater photography. Although you can get into National Geographic, even with a photo taken with an iPhone, this is not certain;)
13. Wildlife Photographer
A wildlife photographer is a photographer who captures wildlife in their natural habitat and photographs of pets or farm animals. If you love taking pictures of animals, you can participate in photo contests with these photos. You can earn money by filming puppies with breeders or filming animal competitions.
14. Macro Photographer
A macro photographer is a photographer who captures flowers, insects, droplets and another natural artwork using a macro lens or even a microscope. This hobby requires special equipment and a meditative nature of the photographer.
15. Interior Photographer
An interior photographer is a photographer who photographs interiors. To shoot interiors, you need to be able to shoot both general plans and interior details. Different shots require different lenses: for example, to shoot a general shot in a small room, you cannot do without a wide-angle lens. You can earn money on interior photography by renting real estate for sale for real estate agencies. But such shooting will also help for interior blog.
16. Travel photographer
A travel photographer is a photographer who takes pictures while traveling, noticing and capturing the national flavor of the country in which he is located. It’s more of a hobby than a profession, but it can be monetized through a blog.
17. Street Photographer
Street photographer is a photographer who takes pictures of architecture and passers-by on the streets of the city. This genre of photography cannot be turned into a profession. It’s more like fishing – you have to wait a long time to catch a good shot, which you still won’t sell to anyone. But it is quite possible to win in photo contests with such photos.
18. Mobile Photographer
A mobile photographer is a photographer who shoots with a mobile phone. For a photographer who loves to notice the beauty around him, it is most convenient to shoot with a mobile phone, since he is always with him. Moreover, now they have already begun to produce high-quality phones with good cameras, which have manual settings. That is why mobile photography courses are so popular now. Each smartphone manufacturer runs its own mobile photography competition.
19. Subject Photographers
A subject photographer is a photographer who photographs objects or goods for sale. This genre of shooting is very popular, as trade via the Internet is actively developing now. The visual presentation of goods and services is very important when there is no way to touch or smell the goods via the Internet. By photographing objects in isolation (against a white or any plain background) or in the context of its application, you can show the characteristics of a product or service and persuade the visitor to buy.
To be able to show an object from a favorable angle, at the right angle of light – that’s what a subject photographer needs to be able to do. And it doesn’t hurt to know Photoshop, since you need to be very careful to retouch photos for online stores.
20. Food Photographer
A food photographer is a photographer who photographs food. The request for food photos is also very large, as more and more establishments consider it necessary to add real photos of dishes to their menus. Food delivery sites are also popular, which post photos of sushi, pizza and other dishes. You can also shoot food for recipe blogs. Food photography is a very creative and varied direction, as it can include not only shooting, but also food styling, composition, cooking, culinary master classes and, in the end, eating delicious snacks.
21. Fashion Photographer
A fashion photographer is a photographer who photographs clothes, shoes and accessories in a holistic manner on a model. Fashion photographers are in demand among designers of clothes and accessories, tailor-made clothing and footwear ateliers, large brands of light industry. Such shooting takes place for look books and brand books, as well as for fashion magazines and glossy magazines. Fashion photographers shoot in different genres: fashion story or beauty portraits.
If in the center of fashion story clothes and accessories, then makeup comes to the fore in beauty portraits. For a fashion photographer, it is important to understand fashion and style trends, develop through viewing the work of famous fashion photographers, artists and designers, as well as work on your own image and personal brand. Indeed, on the photographer’s website, the photograph of the photographer himself plays an important role.
22. Advertising Photographer
An advertising photographer is a photographer who takes a photo for a specific purpose – advertising. In principle, food, fashion, and the subject are filmed for advertising as well. But filming cars, for example, for a car manufacturer’s website or filming planes for an airline, is purely advertising photography. The task of an advertising photographer is to create a selling image that will attract customers.
23. Porn Photographer
A porn photographer is a photographer who captures scenes of a sexual nature. In addition to explicit porn, there are several more restrained genres of nude photography (erotica, nude, boudoir).
24. Blogger Photographers
Blogger photographers are bloggers who shoot exclusively for their own blog. They can blog about family, personal brand, copywriting, promotion on social networks, travel, literature, movies, cars – absolutely any topic.
25. Culinary Photographers
Culinary photographers are chefs and pastry chefs who make delicacies to order and photograph them in combination. To attract customers and receive orders on the Internet, you need to be able to photograph these goodies. You won’t hire a professional food photographer to shoot every cake or batch of gingerbread, so it’s more convenient to learn how to shoot and photograph your culinary products yourself.
26. Photographers Artisans
Photographers artisans are masters who shoot their handicrafts: forging, knitting, sewing, decoupage, ceramics, jewelry, etc. Photographers-subject matter take a lot (prices for subject photography from a professional photographer start at $250 per hour) therefore, artisans often combine manual work with the functions of a photographer to avoid paying a professional photographer, but it is nevertheless profitable to present their products on the Internet.
By the way, great photo content can come to the photographer in customer reviews: for example, satisfied customers can appear in handmade earrings, sweaters, belts, dresses, hats and mark the master when posting photos on social networks.
27. Beauty Masters
Beauty masters are masters who photograph their clients before and after the provision of a service. This includes photos of nails, eyelashes, eyebrows, hair, teeth after beauty treatments or medical services. Stylists, make-up artists, hairdressers, eyebrows, manicurists and other service workers can search for jobs and clients with the help of beautiful photographs of their clients (especially in the format before and after the provision of the service). After all, you will not order a professional photographing of a client at the end of every hour.
You may also like to read: Gift for Photographer: What to Give A Photographer?
Conclusion
From this far from complete list of various fields of application of photography and self-realization as a photographer, we can conclude that the profession is multifaceted and is in great demand right now, in the age of development of information technologies, where visual content dominates.
The cost of an hour of work of a photographer in different areas is charged differently depending on the scope of photography services and the demand for this specialist.
The work schedule of the photographer depends on the labor relations with the customer: if it is a full-time photographer, then there may be a fixed daily routine, and if it is a freelance photographer, then the work schedule is variable, with a pronounced seasonality in the most popular genres. Moreover, in the work of a photographer, it does not matter whether you are a boy or a girl, have a higher art education or little experience as a photographer. The best resume for a photographer is his portfolio.
