Commercial Photography

Commercial Photography

Commercial photographers, or advertising photographers, are in the business of taking photos of things that are sold to the public. Commercial photographers work with film photography or digital photography. Digital commercial photographers have the advantage over digital photographers in that the image can be seen immediately and uploaded to a laptop computer so turnaround time for the client can be as little as two hours.

Commercial photographers work in all manner of settings, from outdoors in the middle of nowhere to indoors photographing rugs. The sky is the limit, sometimes literally, in commercial photography.

Digital photographers have the advantage over film photographers in commercial photography but must beware of certain digital pitfalls. Lighting is crucial to excellent digital work. Indoor photography can be difficult especially if the photographer has to rely on the fluorescent lighting that is typically in buildings. Fluorescent lighting casts a green hue over everything and the images will have to be altered in an art program. Also to watch out for is spaces without enough light. This causes a pixilation of the image because not enough light gets to the sensors and so that portion of the image is lacking in pixels.

Some commercial artist work for commercial photography businesses and some are freelance. Freelance work can be easy to get if the photographer's portfolio is good and up to date, and his or her references are good. An up to date portfolio shows a client that the photographer has been working continuously and good references mean that his or her past clients have been very satisfied. Professional attitude and confidence is a must for the commercial photographer.