Photography Education

Last week, we were contacted with a few interview questions on life as a photographer. Because I’m all about killing 2 birds with one stone, I’ll respond to the interview questions for the interviewee (thanks for sending those over Sara), and also score a bonus blog post from the answers. These answers are from my (TJ’s) perspective, not Larissa’s. She’d have a different perspective since she does different roles in the studio. She does sessions during the week, and we both shoot at weddings. I do also do videography at weddings, and I run the non-shooting part of the studio during the week.

1. What got you interested in photography? Larissa dragg[...]

So there’s good news and bad news about how much photography education is required to be a wedding photographer. Some wedding photographers get a 4 year degree in photography before starting, while other wedding photographers jump right in with no formal education. I’ll run through some of the most popular forms of photography education and give you my take on their effectiveness.

4 Year Degree I can’t even begin to tell you how many people I’ve talked to who have a photography degree from some university, and they still have no real-world photography skills. Oh sure, they could tell you about all kinds of famous photographers of years gone by, and they c[...]

I’ve seen plenty of professional photographers argue the case for specializing in a certain type of photography, but I don’t remember often, if ever hearing the other side of the coin. There are pro’s and con’s to specializing and to not specializing in a certain type of photography. The way I see it, there’s not one right answer. It’s a decision that needs to be based on what will work out best for your business. Here are some of the major factors that you should consider when deciding whether to specialize.

Specialized Skills Do you have a lot of experience in one type of photography? If you’ve been shooting weddings for years, but h[...]