Professional photography is a brilliant career choice for if you are creative, artistic and have a good sense of structure. Photography is a competitive field many photographers start up small and work their way up from the bottom.
Photography is one of the most compelling and authoritative forms of visual communication, challenging the viewer and demanding an emotional response. It is one field where age and college degrees are not as important as a good eye, a quality product, and self discipline; However to become a professional photographer doing a degree in photography could be a wise step for your career. If going full time to a school is not an option, there are several part-time courses or shorter courses that you could take. You will find professional design institutions to private tuition or even a free online course. However in this article I will focus on full degree programs.
There are many different type of undergraduate programs, and you should try to find the right program for you. You can start by asking these questions "In which direction would I like to end up?", "Is it in sports or fashion or would I like to become an artist or work for a commercial company?". The most popular undergraduate programs within Photography are Artistic Photography, Digital Photography and Commercial Photography. To describe the difference in the programs I will use the description from The Arts University College at Bournemouth which is one of the best ranked schools for Photography in Europe;
"Commercial Photography aims to produce the next generation of visually expressive fashion, documentary/editorial, portrait and advertising photographers". While their bachelor program in (artistic) Photography is described as; "BA (Hons) Photography explores contemporary photographic practice within a broad cultural context, and is underpinned by historical and critical approaches to the medium of photography".
When looking at their students portfolios you will see quite a difference. The students in Commercial Photography shoot more photos that you will see in magazine and advertising, while the students in Photography art a bit more artistic. Although you will learn most of the same techniques when it comes to actually taking the pictures, Commercial Photography and Digital Photography will not deal with the actual development of the photos as they will in the general track. The two tracks will have more emphasizes on digital suite and working with the pictures digitally.
After graduation, students often go directly into the industry as freelance photographers or assistants within the areas of fashion, advertising and editorial photography. Others choose related careers including working on picture desks, working for photographic agents, styling or in advertising.
A lot of UK institutions also offer joint degrees where you can combine Photography with other subjects like fashion promotion, scriptwriting or marketing. Could a combination be something for you? If you combine to disciplines you will get quite a good foundation and will broaden your changes to get a fixed job, if that is what you are looking for.
Photography is one of the most compelling and authoritative forms of visual communication, challenging the viewer and demanding an emotional response. It is one field where age and college degrees are not as important as a good eye, a quality product, and self discipline; However to become a professional photographer doing a degree in photography could be a wise step for your career. If going full time to a school is not an option, there are several part-time courses or shorter courses that you could take. You will find professional design institutions to private tuition or even a free online course. However in this article I will focus on full degree programs.
There are many different type of undergraduate programs, and you should try to find the right program for you. You can start by asking these questions "In which direction would I like to end up?", "Is it in sports or fashion or would I like to become an artist or work for a commercial company?". The most popular undergraduate programs within Photography are Artistic Photography, Digital Photography and Commercial Photography. To describe the difference in the programs I will use the description from The Arts University College at Bournemouth which is one of the best ranked schools for Photography in Europe;
"Commercial Photography aims to produce the next generation of visually expressive fashion, documentary/editorial, portrait and advertising photographers". While their bachelor program in (artistic) Photography is described as; "BA (Hons) Photography explores contemporary photographic practice within a broad cultural context, and is underpinned by historical and critical approaches to the medium of photography".
When looking at their students portfolios you will see quite a difference. The students in Commercial Photography shoot more photos that you will see in magazine and advertising, while the students in Photography art a bit more artistic. Although you will learn most of the same techniques when it comes to actually taking the pictures, Commercial Photography and Digital Photography will not deal with the actual development of the photos as they will in the general track. The two tracks will have more emphasizes on digital suite and working with the pictures digitally.
After graduation, students often go directly into the industry as freelance photographers or assistants within the areas of fashion, advertising and editorial photography. Others choose related careers including working on picture desks, working for photographic agents, styling or in advertising.
A lot of UK institutions also offer joint degrees where you can combine Photography with other subjects like fashion promotion, scriptwriting or marketing. Could a combination be something for you? If you combine to disciplines you will get quite a good foundation and will broaden your changes to get a fixed job, if that is what you are looking for.
About the Author:
Espen is the CEOof Uniabroad. He recently created Designstudier.no - a portal for higher creative education which describes different programs as Photography and schools like AUCB.. This article, Photography studies: Power to communicate meaning is available for free reprint.
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