Professional Studies: Employment Opportunities for Photographers
The photographic industry is rife with employment possibilities, however, they can be difficult to come by or acquire because of more and more talent coming into the imaging world. Almost everyone who has a phone also has a camera built in to it, meaning that image making is becoming accessible almost universally. I believe this adds to the difficulty many photographers have in finding work; when amateur shots can very well be brilliant ones as well as those professionally produced. This being said, there are skillsets which professional photographers have which set them apart from the rest, and which also can be applied to numerous areas of work in the imaging industry as a whole.
The first obvious port of call for people studying photography is to become a photographer. Photographers may become sole-traders and work freelance for clients to earn their income; or they might prefer to be employed by a company for a salary instead. Both options have their benefits and their downfalls. Personally, I would prefer to become employed by an organisation to earn a fixed salary because of the financial stability. Freelance offers photographers the chance to choose which jobs they accept or decline, and may well earn large sums of profit from their work, but there is always the unpredictable nature of not knowing exactly how much money you will make each month. I think that this option is a less desirable option for people who have families they need to support and mortgages to pay, and perhaps might be a more popular idea amongst younger people with less financial commitments. When photographers are employed for a company, they will receive a fixed salary which is more reliable than the aforementioned freelancers’. They will also have more of a social working environment being that they will have a headquarters of sorts to report to. However, there is always the possibility with this kind of employment that the photographer must oblige to shoot something they are uncomfortable with or that their images may not make the final cut or be chosen for print in whichever medium they are intended for. Also, employed photographers do not own their images’ copyright - their employer does, which is a disadvantage no freelancer experiences.
Of course, those who study the subject may not even become photographers; there are a vast amount of employment opportunities which their skills can supply them with. For example, these people may also want to work in retouching, digital editing, curating, gallery assistance, photographer assistance, and many more areas of work.
Personally, I regard some possibilities as more desirable than others. Because of my skills in digital editing and my interest in doing so to bring out the very best quality and aesthetics of images, I would be interested in retouching or editing work. I feel that I might enjoy work in gallery assistance or curating just as much because I like to be involved in image selection and presentation. I definitely feel that if I become a photographer, I would like to be working under an employment contract rather than freelance, so that I have a secure job and more of a social aspect to my life.
I would hope that in a year’s time, I will have established myself more as a photographer by trying to get my work noticed through submitting it in competitions and commissioned opportunities. I also want to work on my personal style of photographing and discover how to best display it in my imagery.
