Expert: Don Wood - 4/30/2006

Question
Hello, I am an aspiring high school photographer. In my class we are to do a research report on a chosen median. . If someone could answer my questions about a career in photograph, it would be greatly appreciated.

1)What Subject matter in a photograph is in the highest demand with customers?

2)If you could go back and do something differently to improve your career what would you have done?

3) What kind of experience would an employer be looking for before hiring a beginner photographer?

4)What kind of hours should I expect from this career?

5) How could I have a successful photography business without going digital, despite the craze?

6)Can the quality of an image be noticed between digitally manipulated compared to darkroom manipulated?

7)What skills or classes would be considered necessary to being a photography?

8)How would I make my photography stand out, since their are many aspiring photographers out there?

9) Do you have any random words of wisdom?

Thank you again for your time
Rose

Answer
There are many fields in photography. Each field has a slightly different focus in what the customer desires. For example; advertising focuses on something different than portraits. Travel focuses on something different, and you can further subdivide this into people, scenery or the differences between your culture and their cultures. You get the point.
In portrait photography, you have the standard portraits of a person at a particular time of life. Senior, graduation, 8th. grade, etc. You can subdivide this into weddings, reunions, etc. This is a division that promotes emotions. You can look at your class reunion photos of 10th reunion, 20th etc and see how you've progressed. You get the idea.
If I could do it over again, I'd get an education in business as well as being instructed in the art of photography.
You term the digital media as a craze, it isn't. Photography is evolving and embracing new ways of producing the work. A photographer that doesn't evolve will be faced with dwindling work and income. When I started 35 years ago, Black and White was over 75% of my business. It quickly went to 50%, in the past 6 years, I've done work in the b/w area possibly 2-3 times. I've even seen my color film requests dwindle. I much prefer the work that can be done with a photo-editing software such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. The days of sending film to the processor, waiting 1-2 weeks for proofs to return, showing them to the customer, receiving the order and sending it on to the lab are soon to go the way of the glass negative. It will still be used sometimes but in a more and more specialized or demanding way. We must embrace this evolution, learn the rudiments and continue with our work.
You will be training your eyes to pick out the important elements of the job laid in front of you. You will be examining works of art in both art and photography museums with an eye to seeing how you can duplicate or improve upon it depending on what your focus is.
Hours will vary according to what field of photography you are in. If you are primarily doing product photos for advertising it's a more stable field with more stable hours. If you are going to weddings, it'll usually be on the weekends/and or weekend evenings. In other words, it's what your customer wants. You will have to conform to their wishes.
Portraiture is a very satisfying business to be in because you are helping people to recall the pleasant times of their lives. Each picture is a time capsule of a moment of time. In the picture, the subject will never grow old, get sick, or anything else we do naturally. You have stopped time for that moment.
Bear in mind that the more education you get the more you will succeed in your chosen job/career. If I had gotten some business education, I would possibly have missed some roadblocks to succeeding which in turn would have led to more money/profits. Of 10 people that decide to start in business, many will not last through the year. Of those left several may start the next year but drop out for many different reasons (mostly because they can't get enough money to survive). Possibly one may make it to 5 years and possibly succeed in further maintaining the business. In many ways it is feast or famine. Either you have so much business that you can't do the work without extra help (and you hope that the extra help won't start their own business to compete with you} or you are wondering when the next job will come in that will enable you to buy food, rent, etc. In some of the fields it's recording sentiments so in the times of inflation when money is tight, guess where the belt tightens first, yes, sentimental pictures are put off or the wedding order becomes cut in half because of their resources.
I hope that I haven't discouraged you to much. Get as much education as you can get, both in photographic and in business. It will help you in the long run. Gone are the days when anyone with a camera could start a business and succeed automatically. Cameras are so sophisticated that anyone can do it. It's no longer an exclusive club. Cameras are so small that they can fit into a pocket when they used to take up a small van with tripods, large camera and the film holders, you get the picture. I used to consider myself quick on the trigger, now the wedding photogs grab 2,3,400 shots per wedding. I considered that if I got 125 shots it was something.
Thanks for asking, I hope I've helped. Please ask again if I left something out.
Don