Photography as a career

Photography involves capturing images with a camera. These images can be of just about anything, including people, places, animals, objects, or events.

What Is Photography?
A professional photographer does much more than just take pictures, though. Professional photographs are often able to elicit certain feelings. Simply looking at professional photographs can bring on feelings of happiness, dismay, fear, awe, nostalgia, or even hunger.

Expert photographers are also able to make people or situations appear different than they really are. This can be done by utilizing different lighting techniques, or positioning people or objects a certain way. With today’s advanced image editing software, many photographers also change some elements of their photographs in order to make them look a particular way.

What are the different types of photography?
Photographers can – and will – often choose to focus their career in a certain area of photography. Some photographers might only shoot portrait pictures, for example, which involves taking pictures of people, particularly their faces.

Glamor photographers and fashion photographers will take pictures of models and their clothes. These pictures, however, are meant to enhance a person’s beauty or style, and many of them are retouched or airbrushed.
Still life photography, on the other hand, involves taking pictures of static, or still, objects. This can include such things as scenery or architecture.

Photojournalism generally generally involves shooting pictures of newsworthy events. These types of photographers are usually referred to as photojournalists, and they are often hired by newspapers and magazines.

Nature and wildlife photography
If you're a nature freak and also have a passion to capture it, then go for it. You can work for travel and geographic magazines, calendars as you travel around capturing waterfalls, landscapes, wildlife and other interesting shades of nature.

Event photography
Event photographers work for weddings and other events like sports meets, family functions etc. This still has strong demand for film photography, since most clients would like a copy of the negatives.

Still photography
This involves the capturing of inanimate natural or man-made objects. Portrait photography is one example of this, where you can capture pictures of children, pets etc. You can run your own studio or work for someone. Capturing pictures for cookbooks is another good opportunity.

Travel photography
If you love adventure and travelling then travel photography could be good option for you. Travel photographers can work for the hospitality industry, travel magazines and websites. It requires being able to capture the right shot at the right moment.

There are also other specialized types of photography, including science photography, nature photography, underwater photography, wedding photography, and advertising photography.

What do photographers make?
Initially, it's bit hard to make a living in this field but if you're extremely creative and prepared to put in the hard work along with getting equipped with good business skills, it could become a rewarding profession for you.

An assistant working with a senior photographer can earn between Rs 3,000 to Rs 6,500 per month. You can also take up some freelancing jobs and then later work as a full time professional which could fetch you anything from Rs 25,000 to 40,000 a month.

Some fields such as fashion photography are even more lucrative if you're an expert in the field.In case you're self-employed, you can earn from 10,000 to 50,000 a day depending on the kind of assignments you get. For example, you can make huge money if you are a wedding photographer and get a big assignment.

Your salary varies based on the place you're working in and the creativity you bring to your work along with your experience in the field.

The real picture
Initially the earnings may be less and you may have to settle for whatever assignments you get. However, perseverance is key.

It's fun to express your creativity with colors, shades and objects. However, a career in photography may require you to work under pressure and in difficult working conditions. It could be demanding and involve irregular working hours.

What about a photography portfolio?
To get decent paying jobs and clients, a photographer should first put together a decent portfolio. Most portfolios contain several examples of an artist’s strongest work. The photographs in a portfolio can be the products of school projects, paying jobs, or even just hobbies.

Colleges offering courses in photography:

• Osmania University, Hyderabad
• Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, Hyderabad
• College Of Art, University of Delhi, New Delhi
• Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts & Communication (SACAC), New Delhi
• The Indian Institute of Digital Art and Animation, Kolkata
• Sir JJ School of Applied Art, Mumbai
• A.J. Kidwai Mass Communication Research Center, Delhi
• Asian Academy of Film and Television (AAFT), Noida
• Mass communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
• The Light and Life Academy (LLA), Ooty