Commercial Photography – A Course with Different Genre of Photography

Commercial photography is a kind of photography that involves catching the intrinsic soul of a product or service for media channels including magazine ads, company websites, advertisements, and catalogs intended for commercial use. Commercial photography can be a profitable profession to earn a livelihood as a photographer by creating impressive works of art.

Commercial photography can be associated with advertisements, sales, brochures, product placements and with import export business.  If a company wants to sell a product line or an individual product or service, it should have great commercial photos.

Categories of Commercial Photography:

• Portrait Photography: Portrait photography refers to any kind of image of people or face of a person. So this could be a candid and impromptu photo of a staff member working, taken in a studio. Portrait photography becomes complex when shoot in set design, unusual lighting background or involving multiple subjects. Wedding photographers do portrait photography but also do commercial photography as they focus on highlighting the wedding dress, the shoes, the bride herself.
• Product Photography: The apparent perceived value of a product and the trustworthiness of a company’s brand are often judged upon the quality of visual presentation. Having exceptionally beautiful product images make a company increasingly acceptable among its potential buyers, increasing its sales. 
• Photojournalism: Photojournalism is a form of photography that involves journalism, showing a news story of a situation happening in the world. Photojournalists, by capturing a major incident or current happenings, interpret the event through a visual story of images which are then used by media houses and news channels.
• Food Photography: It is a genre of commercial photography where professional photographers capture beautiful photos of various cuisines and create still life photographs of different menus in an attractive manner. Food photography requires in depth understanding of how best to put light and shades on the dishes in order to make them appear most mouthwatering and enticing.
• Advertising photography: Advertising photography is a field of photography used for commercial purposes rather than telling a true story like in photojournalism. It involves taking pictures of products, services, or an individual to be used in print advertising, such as magazines, websites, television advertisements, newspapers.
• Fashion Photography: Fashion photography involves displaying clothing and fashion accessories in an attractive way for fashion magazines or advertisements. Fashion photography referred to as editorial fashion photography, shows recent trends and lifestyles that expresses the attitudes of fashion editors and is probably the biggest area of commercial photography.

So a professional Commercial Photographer combines the artistic techniques and competency of any photographic vision with technical equipment to capture and manipulate photographs for media outlets. Successful commercial photographers incorporate technical aspect of photography for commercial interests.