As Professional photographers we take pictures of people, events, places and objects. Our work can appear anywhere from newspapers and magazines to wedding albums and textbooks. Professional photography covers a wide range of different specialisms. Each job - or shoot - will be different, and how we spend our time will depend on the area in which they work. After a shoot we print or digitally mani
pulate the pictures before sending them to the client. We also spend time archiving our images. Increasingly, digital photography is replacing film. Photographers may specialize in one or more of the following areas:
• general practice - the most common type of work and includes family portraits, school groups and weddings
• advertising - working on commission from advertising agencies, magazines and design groups
• fashion - can be studio based or on location, possibly abroad
• editorial - involves taking pictures to illustrate articles, often in magazines
• newspapers - working for either the local or national press
• medical - involves recording operations, experiments and postmortems for teaching and scientific purposes, often using specialist equipment
• scientific and technical - involves taking pictures for government departments and research institutes, often using cameras that allow for extreme close-ups or high speed photography
• industrial and commercial - involves recording industrial processes, machinery and buildings for research purposes or corporate literature
• police/ forensic - photographers record scenes of crime or traffic accidents for investigative purposes, and may supply pictures to the press.
