school?!?!

[dawn23]

How many people go to school for photography?
I was looking into it and most of the feedback I'm getting is studying photojournalism, & I am not the type to follow politicians around and wait for them to do something worth taking a pic of.?
Any suggestions or comments?! Is it worth it?

 

[KmH]

What makes you think PJ (photojournalism) is all about following politicians around?

There are few jobs available for photographers, but a photographer that has some good business savy can make a living being self-employed.

There are 3 main categories of self-employed photography businesses:

Retail - portraiture, weddings, events, etc. The photographer sells copies of the images made, to the people in the images. The photographer retains copyright.

Commercial - making images for advertising, promotion, corporate head shots, corporate annual reports, products, packaging, etc. The photographer sells use licensing (a kind of retal agreement) and usually retains copyright.

Editorial - This is where PJ comes in. A lot of PJ shooters don't work for someone else any more (like magazines and newspapers), and many of them have become commercial or retail photographers. Some like David Hobby, who used to shoot for a newspaper in Baltimore, have developed businesses teaching others how to do photography. David Hobby took a 1 year sabbatical and started the popular OCF website www.strobist.com.
He never went back to the newspaper.

Some of the national magazines, like National Geographic, still have staff photographers.

Good luck!

 

[thompssc]

...

There are few jobs available for photographers, but a photographer that has some good business savy can make a living being self-employed.

Good luck!

Honestly I think you would be better off going into business. Maybe study entrepreneurship or finance or marketing. But I think going to college for photography is a waste of several thousand dollars. Although photography is a skill that requires lots and lots of practice and often lots of reading (about lighting/posing/equipment//software/etc), that can all be done by yourself. You don't need to pay thousands of dollars for someone to teach you how to properly expose a photo, or how to use Photoshop, or how to effectively use lighting to enhance a photo. Most of this information is available on the web and is easy enough to understand on your own.

Now before the pro's come in and flame me, let me go ahead and say that just because that information is widely available doesn't mean that it's easy to get really good at photography. It simply means that it's fairly easy to learn the technical side of it. The rest of it is much more difficult to learn. However, it still isn't really something that can be "taught". How to frame photos, an eye for composition, creativity- these are the the things that can only be learned and perfected through lots and lots of practice and observation. I think going to college for photography is generally a bad idea because 1) learning the technical aspects can easily be done on your own and 2) the non-technical aspects really aren't something that can be taught in college.

Also, I'm not a pro, but from all the boards I've participated on and all the reading I've done and talking to pro's that I personally know, I think the majority will say that being a good photographer is just half the battle, if that. The other half is running the business. Many aspiring pro photographers envision a life of taking pictures of clients, editing them, and then collecting a paycheck. Sounds awesome right? That's the life! Get paid to take pictures! There's a lot more to it than that though. You've got to have a website, you've got to have a blog (well, you don't HAVE to, but I find that the more successful ones do...), you've got to UPDATE your website regularly, you've got to file taxes, you've got to market your business, you've got to network, you've got to keep up with what you're competition is doing, you have to go out and take photos...often. And editing the photos is not like what you're used to. It's not all fun and creative. You don't really have the luxury to spend hours on one photo and make it just right. You've likely got hundreds of photos from each shoot to filter through and process, and then publish to the web, and send proofs to the client, etc. And if you're doing multiple shoots a week and a few hundred photos per shoot, that leaves you with thousands of photos to go through each week. In addition to doing the marketing and other nonsense.

I'm not necessarily trying to scare you away from doing photography as a job, but I do want to point out that a large part of being successful with it is running a business. And that's something that college usually is good for. Plus, if photography doesn't work out, it leaves you a lot more marketable. Learning to manage a business and think like a business person would be much more valuable than taking a whole bunch of art history classes.

Also, I understand there are semi-pro's who don't have to do as much of the business aspect of it. I'm assuming that if someone is going to college for something, they don't want to just do it on the side, they want to do it full time. And certainly there are exceptions to everything.

My .02