Today Express News /
Writer:- Sumit Saurabh
Director- Design Circle
A career as a Photographer is a blend of technical and artistic acumen. Photography is an art, and it needs a lot of practice and perseverance. Photographers produce images/ pictures that tell a specific story, give an internal message or record an event. With the rapid growth of the advertising and media sectors, the employment opportunities in photography witnessed a tremendous boost.
With the boom in advertising, media and the fashion industry, photography has emerged as a lucrative and thrilling career option to many of Indian youths. Until some years ago the masses regarded photography as a hobby profession only, but now it has now emerged in a big way. These days, Photography is fast emerging as a popular career choice among all the age groups. Photography is both a science and an art. It is an artistic means of expression, the camera replacing the pen or the paintbrush. A photographer must be able to create a good composition of any subject, a piece of machinery, the beauty of human body, scenery or a child’s smile. It is rightly said that a single picture can sometimes be much more eloquent than a thousand words. Few vocations offer a larger variety of prospects than does photography. Photography is divided into many streams each generating numerous job opportunities.
Photography – Career Scope :-
A modern day photographer can work in many avatars, the notable among them include:
Press Photographers:-
Photojournalists supply pictures to the national and global press. This career role demands an ability to photograph all kinds of newsworthy people, places, sports, political, and community events for newspapers, journals, magazines, or television. A photojournalist must possess a journalistic sense to shoot a good news picture.
Fashion Photographers:-
This arena has developed in India only recently 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.
Wedding Photographers:-
They take pictures of individuals or small groups, handling subjects like pets, children, families, weddings, functions and activities of sports and social clubs.
Feature Photographers:-
Feature photography essentially involves describing a story through pictures and hence requires a thorough knowledge of the subject. Many photographers specialize in the photography of wildlife, sports travel, environment etc.
Commercial Photographers:-
Such a 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.
Advertising Photographers:-
They are connected with the photographic departments of advertising agencies, photographic studios. A sizeable section of them happen to be freelancers. Advertising photography is possibly the best-paid and most competitive branch of all; success in this sphere depends entirely on ability, efficiency and the right personality.
Freelance Photographer:
Freelancing has been the most popular career choice among photographers. Photographers who want to be self-employed need to have business management skills. They can do freelancing in any of the above fields.
Self-employed, or freelance, photographers may license the use of their photographs through stock photo agencies or contract with clients or agencies to provide photographs as necessary. They should also develop an individual style of photography in order to differentiate themselves from the competition.
Personal Skills:-
The subject requires a natural instinct, observation power, training, a great degree of discipline, practice and an eye for detail apart from an intelligent, curious and perceptive mind. A photographer must have the ability to intermingle the details with his creative ability so as to catch a picture well in his camera.
Photography – Eligibility Criteria
These days, a number of schools offer photography at the 10+2 stage as a vocational subject. There are no specific academic requirements for the full time courses in photography; however, candidates who have cleared the 10+2 exam are eligible for the diploma/ certificate courses in photography.
