Career Trends: Overexposure in Digital Photography?

By Stanley Rubenti
Career Colleges Columnist

10 years ago, photography was a relatively expensive venture. Even if you had the skills, talent, camera, and clients, you still needed access to a dark room on a regular basis. Stopper, red lights, developer, blackout curtains, sufficient plumbing, and adequate ventilation were just a few of the major obstacles that kept the freelance photographer pool quite small. But then came digital photography. Instead of having an entire room in your house or apartment dedicated to processing photos, all you needed was a PC workstation, software, and a printer. So what's to stop the freelance photographer pool from becoming too large?

Photography Software Only Makes Things Worse

In the early days of digital photography, editing pictures, enhancing photos, and creating stunning layouts was still a relatively cumbersome affair. There just wasn't sufficient software to handle the needs and demands of photographers all over the world. But then players like Picasa, Dreamweaver, and Photoshop began listening to what their customers had to say.

Case in point: Adobe recently began shipping its most recent salvo in the photography editing software wars. Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 is described as a fully featured application that has been custom tested by over 500,000 photographers during the beta stage. The jury is still out as to how effective this new software actually is, but the numbers are both impressive and alarming. Again, what is to stop the freelance photographer pool from becoming too large?

Digital Photography Education

Now that the barrier to entry has been lowered, it's not unreasonable to expect the number and quality of photographers to rise substantially over the next several years. In this type of environment, why would anybody hire you for freelance or professional projects? The answer is simple. Continued photography education and training will help distinguish you from would-be photographers looking to break into the scene.

Digital photography is an extremely powerful medium, but its versatility and depth are best accessed by those who truly understand the nuances of photographic art, multimedia, computer science, and graphic design. By securing a degree in digital photography, you can transform yourself into a much more competent and employable photographer.

Source:
ZDNet

About the Author
A freelance writer, Stanley Rubenti currently lives in Bangkok where he writes columns for a variety of publications. Stanley holds a B.A. in history.

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