 BetterPhoto Member |
???'s from a 12 year old girl about photography I want to be a photographer and I'm also do a report on it and need some help. Here are some of my ???'s. Whate are the hours?(For most photographers)What do you get paid? What kind of photos can be takin? What tools do you need? Do you buy your own tools? What schooling do you need?(How long do you have to go) What is expecked of you? What is the best tools to use?(Brand speed ect.) What do you photograph most, and least?Where could you get a job? Thank you very much to who ever answers my letter Stevei Butler
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
1. Hours can vary with what you do, what you are shooting. You work for a newspaper you try to work a 40hr. week but most of the time you try to schedule everything the best you can. But if you do go a little over 40hr. a week, you just put 40hr. down so you don't get into hassles with management. Because newspapers don't hate to pay overtime, unless you get scheduled for a holiday, like to shoot a veterans day ceremony. You work for a magazine or a photo agency like Getty Images and cover something major like the olympics, you'll stay at whatever event till it's over, get paid more on salary instead of by the hour. You do weddings, or fashion, you get paid per wedding or per photo shoot. 2. How much you get depends on what again. Newspapers don't pay that much (people always think they do). The high end is commercial accounts, fashion stuff, or even endorsement contracts if you can get them. Somebody like Mark Seliger shoots covers for magazines, shoots celebrities, has a book. But he dosen't make a good living from just one of them. People think you shoot the cover for Rolling Stone(which is what he's known best for) and you're set for a few months. He gets a cover assignment, done with that he has some shots set up for a cd cover, he may have a shoot with a celebrity set up that can be used later if some magazine decides to do an interview. Then he has an endorsement deal with fuji and I think mamiya that is probably the biggest single paychecks he gets. 3.I'm not clear on this question. If you're on a newspaper, you shoot what you see makes a good picture. If you shoot ads for companies, you try to get what the company is trying to say with the ad. Sometimes you can add your own idea of a picture, but never without giving what they asked for first. If they want a picture that has a certain mood to it, do your best to convey that mood.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
4&5.Bigger newspapers will have camera bodies that they have for people who are on staff. And may have a few big lenses like a 400-600 for shooting big sporting events. But usually they may have only camera bodies and anything else you have to buy yourself. Or you may have to supply all your own equipment. Fashion and commercial, some have their own studios, some just rent studio space. Papers shoot digital, only a very small one in a small town would do their own pictures with film nowadays. Mags like nat. geo. will do both. Most of fashion is done medium format. More and more of it is being done with medium format sized digital. Film probably is still the majority, because the digital medium formats I don't think are all that practical for shooting on locations. At least not yet, but that will change. Most of what you need for whatever you do, you end up needing to buy your own stuff. 6.Schooling can be journalism major or photo art major in college, get out in 4 years hopefully. There's schools of art, schools of design, school of visual arts like Brookes Institute you can go to instead of the usual universities. Some peole get an assistant job with a fashion photog and use that as a stepping stone.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
7,8,&9.What's expected is to be good, be consistant, show variety, and creative. And be dependable. Best tools are whatever gets the job done. Sometimes a person who does medium format for fashion will use a 35mm for a job because it may offer him/her some freedom of spontanaiety as I've heard some say. Some need digital because of a dead line to meet. What you photograph depends on what you like, what's in your area, what you've found a niche to make money shooting. Where you get a job, if there's an opening at a paper or magazine you apply. You shoot freelance, if you're somebody that can get that with something like Newsweek you can live in Chicago but get assignments all over the country. Go to www.hsstudio.com. That's the website of a husband/wife team who has a studio in Maryland. They shoot stuff for companies all over the country. Sometimes people come to them, sometimes they go to the client, sometimes they'll do something and never meet face to face with the client. They'll do the picture, send an example online and if the client likes it, shoot the final picture and then do whatever else they need to do. The benefits of doing everything digital. Another website you can look at is www.studiomark.com. That's some guy in california name Mark Robert Harper. It's got his bio that you can read about how he got started. And you'll see some of the stuff he does and who he does it for.
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