Commercial Photography

Commercial Photography

A popular and common commercial photography assignment undertaken by professional photographers is wedding photography. Generally, this involves covering not just the wedding day events but other important rituals and functions preceding the wedding day.

In the pre-digital days, it was a daunting task to undertake a photography assignment. The limitations of film camera equipment, heavy lenses and the fact that there was no room for error, led only the professional photographers doing most of the jobs. With advent of digital photography, the dynamics of the entire commercial photography underwent a paradigm shift.

The entire lineage of old studios with dark rooms, chemicals and staff were replaced with the digital darkroom editing software like Adobe Photo Shop, Apple Aperture etc. While these two remain the most popular editing software, there are plethora of free editing software available that many of the amateurs prefer to use due to the daunting costs of commercial editing software and flexibility to experiment as well as learn with minimum / least cost.

A commercial photographer today is equipped with: digital camera typically above 18 Mega Pixels, a dedicated external strobe flash, light weight tripod, memory cards and sometime external flood lights. The most expensive set of equipment is generally not the camera, but the lenses required to cover an event or complete commercial assignments that require a wide range of subjects to be covered. The best example being, the industrial photography assignments in which the photographer is expected to capture the top-management photo-shoots as well as the industrial processes which may involve the making of parts, melting of steel, foundry photography, manufacturing, assembly lines etc.

Commercial photography although challenging, does not give good financial returns, as some clients fail to understand the efforts involved in the photo-shoot followed by hours of post-production and editing done on the images to make them appealing to the target audience. The most common usage of the commercial images are magazines, brochures, product manuals and the client's web site and presentations.

For each of the final platforms on which the photograph is going to be delivered, the editing and post-processing requirements change. For example, if the final output platform is going to be a website there is no need of working on the print quality images, resized images will suffice.

Commercial photography offers many practical and logistical challenges to the photographer. The industrial photographers are required to know the location, time and have to study the various angles at which the photograph can be captured. Sometimes, on location photography may be done at night, when there is lot of external artificial lighting setup for giving the optimum effect.

Creative photography ideas that you should try

Here are 12 ideas to get your creative juices flowing and increase your skills and value as a photographer.

TIP 1 - Time Lapse photos. I showed my niece how to do this with clay figures and stitch the resulting frames together into a video file, and she was busy for days. If you control the exposure consistently to keep the images consistent with one another, you can do some really fun stop-motion animation. Or, you can set up your camera to capture other slow motion effects such as flowers opening and seedlings growing.

TIP 2 - Night Lights. Things look very different at night. Shooting city scenes with available light creates some interesting images. And shooting outdoor images under moonlight or with "light painting", where you open up the camera shutter for an extended exposure, and "paint" your targets with colored or plain light, can create some truly bizarre images.

TIP 3 - Astrophotography. Hook that SLR up to a telescope, and you are ready to peer into the depths of space and time. You'll need some adapters, and ability to compensate for the earth's rotation for really long shots. Start with the moon and move on from there.

TIP 4 - Macro photography. From flowers to coins to stamps, you can polish your skills at close-up photography and capture some really detailed images. Often a macro lens or close-up attachment will help. See my tips on Flower Photography to get more information.

TIP 5 - Micro photography. If you can interface that camera with a microscope, you can get some really crazy images. Or, stack up a bunch of close-up magnification and try your hand at turning salt crystals into surreal imagery.

TIP 6 - Insurance Photos. OK, maybe a bit boring, but you and your friends and relatives will thank you. Take a couple hours and touch and photograph everything of value, with a full shot or two if each item of value, accompanied by a shot of the identifying marks - manufacturer model or serial number. Then burn a CD or DVD and store it off site. If you have a fire or other loss, this could save the owner thousands of dollars.

TIP 7 - Family Recipe book. Anytime those family favorites are prepared, copy down the recipe and take some photos of the food. You can produce a printed or electronic cookbook of family favorites that everyone will love.

TIP 8 - Stock Photography. This is a very busy market niche, but the cost of entry is low. Specialize in things you love, and you may be able to generate some income from your stock images. Search for stock photography sites, and make sure you understand your rights before you post images.

TIP 9 - Special Effects. Maybe you want to specialize in high-speed images of athletes, or surrealistic collages. Try your hand at using your editing skills to put someone in a soda bottle or floating on a candy lifesaver. Often more artistic than photographic, it will test your composition, lighting and editing skills to come up with believable artificial realities.

TIP 10 - Still Life. Ahh, the bowl of fruit. Sometimes a simple object or collection, properly lit, shot and edited, is a thing of beauty. It's a great way to study light. Start with an egg on a light background, a lamp and a window and see how you can learn about lighting and composition.

TIP 11 - Computer Control. Many cameras have a USB interface and remote control software. You can actually control the camera from the computer. See if you can get it to work to your liking, and maybe even program some time lapse or exposure bracketing experiments.

TIP 12 - Be Like Andy. Take some images of everyday items and try to create those neat colored backgrounds like Andy Warhol used to make. Create a 4-up print of the same image and change the colors of each quadrant to make an interesting square print.

Have fun with these ideas, and let me know when you become famous!

Top Photography Schools

Passion in Photography

Do you have an eye for compelling images or do you have the desire to capture special moments or keep old memories in prints? If you have the desire, but believe you do not have the skills, there are top photography schools where you can take photography lessons from the best the world can offer. There are mostly no restrictions in enrolling in one. You can choose between using the traditional analog cameras or move in to the more advance digital cameras. Whichever you may select, most of the training would be the same.

Most top photography schools are located in cosmopolitan centers all over the world. Cities like New York, Paris and London boast some of the best schools and teachers in this industry. Most top universities also offer great courses in photography.