HOW TO GET THERE
Typical pathway
A Canadian secondary-school student interested in photography often starts by building strong skills in art, visual storytelling, and computer editing, while also practicing with a camera. Helpful courses may include photography, media arts, design, and computer or digital media classes, if available. Many people enter the field through college or university photography or photographic technology programs, or through shorter digital photography programs. Others build experience by assisting established photographers, creating a portfolio, and taking on small assignments. Employers may value different mixes of education and hands-on experience depending on the studio, specialty, or type of work.
THE WORK
What you may do
Legacy duties
- Study requirements of a particular assignment and decide on type of camera, film, lighting and background accessories to be used
- Determine picture composition, make technical adjustments to equipment and photograph subject
- May operate scanners to transfer photographic images to computers
- May operate computers to manipulate photographic images
- May adapt existing photographic images and create new digitized images to be included in multimedia/newmedia products
- May use delicate instruments, such as optical microscopes attached to cameras
- May process exposed film
- May use airbrush, computer or other techniques to retouch negatives
- Medical photographers may work closely with medical illustrators.
- Photographers may specialize in areas such as portrait photography, commercial photography, scientific photography, forensic photography, medical photography, digitized photography, multimedia photography or photojournalism.
SKILLS TO BUILD
Skills used in this Career
ColourComputer useDesignInnovation, artLighting