Photography is the art of capturing living, and non-living objects along with various phenomena in an electronic device called a camera. It mainly focuses on creating images of objects. The images that are created are known as photographs. The camera was one of the most important inventions that were created by Johann Zahn.
Today, the art of photography has spread far and wide around the world. Photography has continuously evolved and has taken various forms. Photography is also used to keep records of important things in a better way. These essential records include pictures of crime scenes. Photographs were preferred more than written records as they gave more detailed and accurate information on the crime scene. This made the work of catching the criminals more efficient.
When photography was not established as an art or profession, people used to capture their precious moments as well as kept their essential records in the form of Polaroid pictures that were charged with the help of a Polaroid camera. Even today, the demand for Polaroid cameras has not decreased. This is because teenagers find the cliche idea of clicking Polaroid pictures cool and aesthetic.
Initially, photography was only considered as a hobby, and people believed that it could not be a proper profession. However, the changes in technology, along with urbanization, broke this belief. Photography now is one of the mediums through which people can earn.
As photography keeps evolving, there is an emergence of different photography styles that come up based on various factors. The external factors like amount and color of light are either altered on the set where the photograph is clicked, or the photo is later edited as per the requirements. The altering of these external factors, along with editing, is the real reason behind the emergence of photography styles.
When we talk about photography as a profession, we must know what type of photography has more scope of earning money. To be very practical, photography is not an easy profession to take up. Still, it is also true that if you are genuinely interested and are determined towards achieving it, then no one can stop you. You must ask yourself this – which photography style am I interested in? This question might seem confusing at times, especially when you know little about photography.
Let us make it easier for you to answer this confusing question. Here are the various photography styles that you would want to explore to either choose a suitable career or even want to take up as a hobby. Let us dive into the pool of photography styles.
1. Fashion photography
Fashion photography is one of the most well-known photography styles. The prominent players in the fashion industry are the designers who design the clothing, the models who wear the dress and pose, and the photographers. They capture the clothing in their cameras. The photographers here are mainly to focus on displaying clothes of famous brands.
Highly professional photographers can only click these photographs because these photographs are used for the marketing of brands and other commercial purposes. The pictures need to be connected in a suitable setting and have to be attractive. Marketing is mainly directed towards the customer’s satisfaction, and thus, fashion photography is a means of marketing and promotion, which has to be up to the mark.
Fashion photography in today’s world has become a mandatory part of the fashion world. The best examples of fashion photography can be seen on magazine covers of Vogue, bazaar, and several other famous brands. Established fashion photographers earn around $200,000 per year. Undoubtedly, fashion photographers are needed in the fashion industry. Still, it is always important to remember that they never have and will never compromise on the quality of the photographs.
Fashion photography comes under editorial photography. Editorial photography includes photographing pictures that will appear next to some text that educates people about some topics.
2. Product photography
This photography style focuses on getting the product in the spotlight. The similarity between fashion and product photography is that both are done for commercial and marketing purposes. Fashion photography can sometimes be included in product photography as the dresses and clothes designed are products. However, product photography might or might not involve models.
The photographs of products that we see on websites are the best examples of product photography. A product photographer needs to take care of the background and lighting around the object that he or she needs to capture. These objects or products are generally charged with a white background so that the work can be highlighted.
Taking pictures from several angles in also recommended to highlight the various features of the product. This can be explained better with the help of an example; when a new mobile phone or a new version of an existing mobile phone is launched, it is essential to take attractive pictures from different angles to show the features that make the phone stand out in the market and to make the customers believe that the phone is worth the money that they are going to pay.
Fashion photography and product photography are included in the category of advertising photography. Advertising photographers capture pictures of all the objects that need to be sold in the market. When a new product arrives in the market, advertising is given the utmost importance. This is because the public needs to be aware of the new arrival. Thus, advertising photography is an essential part of a new enterprise that helps it to grow.
Every photograph that is taken for commercial purposes falls under commercial photography. Advertising photography overlaps with another photography style called business photography .
3. Photojournalism
What do journalists generally do? They find an exciting story, pen it down, and publish it. Journalists create sources for people to know the latest news, information, and incidents all around the world. In this world of technology, science, and increasing urbanization, there is a high demand for new stories either because people want to stay updated about their surroundings or simply want to get entertained.
Photojournalists are journalists provided, they find an exciting story, but instead of writing it down and publishing it, they capture the information in their cameras and show the words in the form of photographs through visual mediums. Photojournalism is an emerging artist that is highly demanded by people all around the world.
Photojournalists need to explain the context of the pictures very clearly. Usage of the proper lens, along with changing focus frequently to capture a wide range of objects, is recommended. However, stability is another important aspect and should not be compromised while changing direction.
Telling a story through pictures makes the story more exciting and adds emotions to it. When we read an article, we can only imagine the condition of people in a particular invention, but, when we look at the pictures of the states, we go through emotions like happiness, sadness, fear, and disgust, which makes our experience of the story better. Photojournalism has a lot of impact on the minds of people.
Photojournalism also plays a significant role in making the world a smaller place by connecting people. When we watch these stories, it feels like the people are not miles away but are just behind the screen. We start understanding and sharing their happiness and sorrows.
4. Event photography
Nowadays, people like to celebrate every achievement, even if it is one of the smallest achievements of their lives. These achievements soon result in big parties where several people are invited. These events can either be restricted to friends and family members or involve the host’s colleagues. Some events are even highly professional and are done for celebrating the achievements of subordinates in an enterprise.
It has become essential to capture these moments to either keep records of the events in an enterprise or to keep those memories with us forever merely. This calls for a new photography style known as event photography. Event photographers are mainly appointed for capturing the precious moments in the lives of people.
An event photographer must be alert throughout the event so that he or she does not miss out on capturing the essential highlights of an event. An event photographer has to be very professional with his or her work and must provide pictures of good quality to the customer. The photographer must respect the sentiments of the person who is hosting the event and should give his or her best efforts to take the best photographs of the event.
There are different types of personal events in a person’s life, like birthdays and weddings. The demand for clicking pictures of events has increased so much that there is a new photography style that has emerged. This is known as wedding photography and mainly focuses on capturing photos at a wedding.
Wedding photographers are generally hired by the people who have taken the responsibility of managing the event. A wedding is one of the most critical events in the society. Around 115,000 weddings are celebrated all over the world per day. Thus, wedding photography is a vital photography style that is emerging at an amazingly fast rate.
Events also include the birth of a baby in a family. The pictures of the new-born are captured by professionals that are hired by the family. This is an exclusive photography style known as new-born photography. The demand for this is continually increasing because parents want to keep the sweet and playful memories of their kids with them forever.
These photography styles overlap with family photography. However, family photography mainly focuses on clicking family pictures as a whole and not only one or two members. Family photography can often be seen at weddings and, in such cases, can also be categorized under wedding photography.
5. Portrait photography
Portrait photography is a photography style where the main object is generally a living person. Portrait photography is somehow similar to product photography in a way that it focuses mainly on the item. The boundaries or margins of the captured picture are essential aspects of portrait photography.
A portrait photograph captures a lot of details, which includes the person’s expressions and personality. Changing the lens of the camera frequently is an integral part of this photography style. Similar to product photography, there should be several angles from where the photos must be captured to get the perfect portrait.
Portrait photographers are generally hired by people who want to build their career in modeling and related careers. A new idea of portrait photography called self-portrait has emerged with time. A self-portrait, in simple words, means that the photographer is the object in the photograph as well.
Some people might say that selfies are self-portraits, which is not entirely wrong, but there is a significant difference between the two; selfies are taken very casually, whereas, in the case of self-portraits, there is a proper analysis of external factors like the lighting and background before clicking the pictures. The object might even have to change his or her position and poses to satisfy the portrait.
6. Wildlife photography
This type of photography is generally related to documentaries of wild animals and can also be included in documentary photography. Wildlife photography is a challenging task and involves a lot of traveling and risk. Wildlife photographers, to pursue their careers, need a different level of patience as it might take a long time to find the perfect moment to capture the required photograph.
Wildlife photographs are focused on the details of animals like their movements. There are instances where the photographer has to click the perfect picture when the animal is in motion.
Wildlife photography includes capturing photos of insects and might require a unique Marco lens in such situations. The photographs must be eye catchy and must attract the viewer. The photography styles that involve the usage of a macro lens are often referred to as macro photography.
Wildlife photography is done for various companies that want to spread awareness about why animals should be saved. Wildlife photography is undoubtedly an exciting photography style that involves a lot of adventure. It can also be categorized under adventure photography.
Adventure photography can be considered as a photography style that includes photographing adventures. Humans are adventurous animals and love thrilling experiences. When they experience a unique adventure, they want to capture it and keep the moment with them forever. Hence, a new style of photography called adventure photography has emerged, and it captures all the adventures in a person’s life. These even play a significant role in travel blogs.
7. Abstract photography
Abstract photography is one of those styles of photography that does not involve an immediate object. This is generally created with the help of equipment and materials that are used in photography. Abstract photographs are highly conceptual and are typically made on computers and other electronic gadgets.
The beauty of abstract photography is that there is no real shape or object in the photograph. Abstraction is something that depends mostly on our imagination and conceptualization. Designers often use stereotypes along with photographers.
An abstract photographer will always have the strength to present his or her imaginative mind in the form of the photograph that he or she has created. Another positive point of this photography style is that it is very rarely possible that a photographer’s creation would be similar to that of another photographer’s design.
Abstract photography is pretty similar to fine art photography in the sense that the photographers in both the photography styles are the artists, and the photos are entirely based on their imagination and mind.
8. Astrophotography
The name astrophotography itself suggests that this photography style includes photographing celestial bodies. The first time astrophotography was taken was in 1840. The moon was the first celestial body to be captured under this photography style.
It was our curiosity to know about celestial bodies and capture the beautiful patterns made by them that gave birth to astrophotography. Today, various people study about these heavenly bodies called astronomy, and astrophotography has made this type of study possible.
The universe is never-ending, and there are uncountable possibilities of the existence of planets and stars that have not yet been discovered. Astronomy, with the help of astrophotography, gets us one step closer to satisfying our curiosities.
Astrophotography can be done by attaching the lens of the camera to a telescope in some cases. The celestial bodies can also be captured through a crop-sensor DSLR. There is another photography style within astrophotography, which mainly focuses on photographing the milky way. This is known as milky way photography.
9. Drone Aerial photography
Aerial photography is a photography style where pictures are captured from a great height. Drone photography is another style that involves the usage of a drone. This type of photography can only be done by professional photographers who know their work very well.
However, there is an emergence of a new photography style where pictures are captured from great heights with the help of air crafts, helicopters, and drones. This is known as drone aerial photography and needs a lot of expertise.
There are several movies where cinematographers take drone aerial shots. These shots hold great importance in making the scenes of the films more attractive.
Along with the excellent quality of the lens, good quality of drones must be ensured while shooting and photographing drone aerial photos and scenes.
10. Landscape, seascape, and skyscape photography
Landscape, seascape, and skyscape photography are photography styles that are quite interrelated as they all focus on capturing the natural beauty of the planet.
Landscape photography mostly includes photographing terrestrial beauty of the part of nature that is situated explicitly on the land. They capture photographs of nature and seldom capture the human-made disturbances with them too. People get engaged in landscape photography most of the time merely because they want to feel a connection with nature and because they like to be outdoors.
Seascape photography is similar to landscape photography but includes capturing the sea as the main object. The motion of water in the ocean is the main factor that influences seascape photography. The positions and angles of the camera must be changed, keeping in mind the direction of the flow of water.
Skyscape photography is concentrated on photographing the sky. If clouds are present in the atmosphere, the photograph can also be called a cloudscape photograph. But it is not always necessary that the sky will be filled with clouds. Skyscape photography interests a lot of people because of the beautiful colors of the sky.
We have always learned that the sky is blue, but when we notice the sky carefully, we understand that the atmosphere changes it’s color several times a day due to many external factors. A person who is involved in any one of these photography styles probably would not find it challenging to get involved in the other two.
11. Social media photography and travel photography
We find maximum people involved in social media and travel photography. These photography styles differ from each other but, at the same time, overlap with each other. Photographing something and posting it on your Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media platform falls under social media photography.
Social media photography can relate to different things and can focus on any object. Travel Photography, on the other hand, is a photography style that involves all the highlights and attractions of the places that you have traveled. Travel photographs are often posted on your social media platform and so overlap with social media photography.
The people who love to travel often make travel blogs and post them. It might also happen that a person captures all the different dishes from different places and make a food blog. This is called food photography and falls under travel as well as social media photography in other contexts.
However, food photography does not necessarily involve traveling to different cities and towns for work. Food photography many times includes going to other hotels, clicking pictures of dishes, and posting it on your social media platform to promote the restaurant.
It will be wrong to think that social media, food, and travel photography can be done casually. It is essential to keep in mind that people will only follow your blogs if your photographs attract them and make them feel like they cannot resist eating the dish or going to the place that you have photographed. Hence, photography should be taken seriously, even if it is just for a blog.
12. Black and white photography
Black and white photography is also known as monochrome photography. As the name suggests, the photographs under this photography style are of back and white colors. All the other stains are removed. The pattern found in these photographs is generally dark to light, but that depends on how the photographer wants the picture looks like.
Black and white photographs have a different beauty. The earliest cameras could only capture black and white photos as the technology was not that advance. Later on, ne cameras were invented, and these could capture pictures of the objects with their original colors. Black and white photography mostly glorifies the beauty of the images taken in those times.
This photography style even helps sharpen the beauty of the object that it focuses on. Black and white photography can be done under several other photography styles; for example, black and white portrait photos can be clicked.
Today, there are a lot of photographs that are first captured and later edited and converted into black and white purposes. The feature of editing pictures has played a significant role in the evolution of photography. It is because of this feature that we can change the picture as our convenience even after the image has already been captured.
13. Architectural photography
This photography style involves photographing structures that are near related to architecture. These structures are photographed aesthetically as well as in a way that it can attract customers. This photography style needs people who are skilled and know their work properly because it involves the usage of specialized equipment.
Architectural photography can also be used in photojournalism to capture the details in an ancient structure.
This is a specialized photography style that requires the usage of vertical and parallel lines so that the object can be the spotlight of the picture. The proportion of the image is also an important aspect. Many people even use DSLR for this photography style due to its tilt-shift feature.
Architectural photography can be interior or exterior based on the set where the photograph is being captured.
14. Scientific photography
Scientific photography is mainly dome for keeping records of important things. It is essential to keep records of the various inventions, discoveries, and other science-related materials first of all because it involves too many people, and secondly, it is necessary to tell the world about these new inventions and discoveries so that the people all around the globe get encouraged to grow.
This is not one of the creative photography styles where you can edit pictures as per your convenience. Here, the images are generally kept as they are, and the photographer rarely needs to make any changes. Very infrequently, scientific photography uses the photograph of the human body abstractly to make it easier for people to understand
15. Still-life photography
Still-life photography, as the name suggests, is the art of photographing still objects or objects that do not move. Product photography and food photography often fall under this photography style. One of the essential features of still life photography is that it focuses on capturing a small group of objects. Most of the motionless life photographers photograph human-made items like vase and fruits.
Still-life photographs are generally created to show a scene that is created by the photographer.
16. War Photography
This photography style is personally my favorite. War photographers capture all the moments of the war, including the conflicts, bloodshed, and even the people who have been affected by the way. This is one of the riskiest photography styles, which is evident because of the war conditions.
Most of the wars took place a long time back. These were the times when cameras could not capture colored photos. Hence, most of the war photographs are black and white. War photography is one of the oldest photography styles.
These photographs that are captured during a war play a significant role in studying history. You must have noticed some pictures in your history textbooks that are related to the world wars. These pictures are the best examples of war photography. It is because of these photographs that we know about the actions more clearly.
Other than these, several other photography styles include long exposure photography, pet photography, stock photography, candid photography, cityscape photography, and many more. Photography styles are uncountable. This is because photography is an emerging artist that is evolving continuously and will keep growing in the future.
Photography has several benefits. It helps in improving concentration and patience and tells you a whole story through a bunch of pictures. A photograph is a memory that you can keep with you forever. Besides, photography relieves you from any type of stress.
Photography, if taken seriously, has a lot of potentials to get you the money that you want. If photography is something that you do not want to do professionally, it can always be taken as a hobby.
To become a good photographer, it is essential to know the basics of all the different photography styles as they are very closely related to one another. Choosing a photography style of your interest and working on it is the next step to accomplishing your dreams. Reading about photography can help to a certain extent.
If you want to start showing your photography and cannot afford to buy a camera at this point, practicing photography on your phone and starting with social media photography might help. Due to the rapid evolution of photography, OK photographers have started many photography courses that you can enroll in and learn more about it.
Photography is an art that involves several photography styles. The quality of photography should be given utmost importance to. No matter how many photographs you click, that one photograph that stands out will get you everything that you want in your life. It is also incredibly important to stay motivated and come back quickly after failures.
Photography is a career where you may have to fail many times before you pass. Hence, having that confidence in yourself and being determined towards your goals is one of the most important things.
Last Updated on by Sathi
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