Taking photos is something that we all do to commemorate a memory, to freeze a moment in time and preserve it to revisit later, time and again. And while we all take photos (some of us every day), there is a significant difference between taking photos on smartphones, and taking photographs professionally. A career in photography often proves to be a fruitful one, but it demands a lot of hard work and back bone. This is particularly true as the field becomes exceedingly more competitive over time. The digital age is well and truly upon us, and photography is just one career path that is creating a full-blown industry from digital creation. Through images and videos, photographers and videographers can make a living while bringing to vivid life and capturing forever the most important and special moments in their clients’ lives (and their own, as well). The fact is that photography (and videography, for that matter) are becoming more popular and in-demand as choice careers, as the world wants to document more and more of their lives. As far as opportune timing goes, there has never been a better time for people to make a career move into photography (or videography).
Around the world, people love to capture moments, and many have turned this love into a flourishing career. Photographers enter a lucrative field when they start out their careers in visual exploration and experiment with various niches from portraiture to wet plate photography. Regardless of how talented a photographer is, there is the realisation that talent is unfortunately outweighed by exposure in this digital era. The more exposure a photographer’s work gets, the more business that photographer gets. You could be the most talented photographer in the room, and not make any money unless your reputation precedes you and people know your work. Of course, this is not to say that unless photographers are well known they do not make money, because they obviously do. What it says instead is that for a photographer to make a booming, long-lasting career from their talents, they must be willing and able to play up their own exposure, and back it up with stunning results. It can be done – and it often is – but it demands a strong back bone and determined eye to ride the waves.
There are also concerns in the industry that this image-propelled social media era could see the end of their careers. Of course, this is understandable. We are more obsessed with social media representation than ever before, and the result is that we are steadily beginning to embrace it perhaps too tightly. Individuals spend hours, even days, curating the perfect social media posts in efforts to balloon their following. And it often works. So, the question on those in the photography industry’s lips becomes “will people stop paying for our work if they can achieve similar results with nothing more than their smartphones or other devices, and a free filter app?”. Here’s the thing. Yes, the cameras on smartphones and GoPros and video cameras are getting better all the time. Yes, people are using filter apps and services more often. And yes, this is a world where we want to display perfect visual representations of life. But there are moments in life that require more than a filter app and a smartphone to be captured. There are times where the subject of the photographs and/or videos wants to be in them, rather than taking them. And that is why demand is still rising, even now, in an age that is continuously proving to be more digital all the time.
This is not set to change any time soon. If anything, the demand will continue to rise at exceedingly rapid levels, as digitalisation the world over surges. There is nothing better in life than realising one’s own potential and ability to turn a passion into a career. And there is nothing more exciting than realising that you are so talented at your passion that people want to pay you for your efforts and your time. We want to remember special moments, the important memories. We want a record of them. And the photographers that capture them are the individuals that allow us to be part of the moment, without needing to be hard of capturing the moment themselves. This is the heart of photography. This is what makes it such a popular career choice. Photography is one of digital creation’s most exhilarating and lucrative careers. More and more, we are seeing an increase in the amount of documentation in the world, both personal and professional, and photography and videography are the tools that bring these documentations to live and preserve them.
We live in an increasingly digital world, and so the demand for digital creators is growing. More people than ever are expressing great interest in careers in photography (and videography). As a result, the field is booming with creative promise and a seemingly endless stream of talent. Being a photographer is hard work, but it can (and often does) prove to be an especially exhilarating career path. And as the field becomes steadily more competitive, photographers are becoming more creative with their brand exposure and unique styles, eager to impress and set themselves apart from their competitors. Establishing a positive reputation in the industry demands hard work and perseverance, and the best of the best make it big, while the rest make it comfortably. Either way, photography is a wonderfully fruitful career choice in this tech-savvy world.