An amateur photographer is one who practices photography as a hobby and not for profit. The quality of some amateur work is comparable or superior to that of many professionals and may be highly specialised or eclectic in its choice of subjects. Amateur photography is often pre-eminent in photographic subjects which have little prospect of commercial use or reward.
[edit] Commerce
Manual shutter control and exposure settings can achieve unusual results.
Commercial photography is probably best defined as any photography for which the photographer is paid for images rather than works of art. In this light money could be paid for the subject of the photograph or the photograph itself. Wholesale, retail, and professional uses of photography would fall under this definition. The commercial photographic world could include:
* Advertising photography: photographs made to illustrate and usually sell a service or product. These images, such as packshots, are generally done with an advertising agency, design firm or with an in-house corporate design team.
* Fashion and glamour photography: This type of photography usually incorporates models. Fashion photography emphasizes the clothes or product, glamour emphasizes the model. Glamour photography is popular in advertising and in men’s magazines. Models in glamour photography may be nude, but this is not always the case.
* Crime Scene Photography: This type of photography consists of photographing scenes of crime such as robberies and murders. A black and white camera or an infrared camera may be used to capture specific details.
* Still life photography usually depicts inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made.
* Food photography can be used for editorial, packaging or advertising use. Food photography is similar to still life photography, but requires some special skills.
* Editorial photography: photographs made to illustrate a story or idea within the context of a magazine. These are usually assigned by the magazine.
* Photojournalism: this can be considered a subset of editorial photography. Photographs made in this context are accepted as a documentation of a news story.
* Portrait and wedding photography: photographs made and sold directly to the end user of the images.
* Landscape photography: photographs of different locations.
* Wildlife photography that demonstrates life of the animals.
* Photo sharing: publishing or transfer of a user’s digital photos online.
* Paparazzi
The market for photographic services demonstrates the aphorism “A picture is worth a thousand words”, which has an interesting basis in the history of photography. Magazines and newspapers, companies putting up Web sites, advertising agencies and other groups pay for photography.
Many people take photographs for self-fulfillment or for commercial purposes. Organizations with a budget and a need for photography have several options: they can employ a photographer directly, organize a public competition, or obtain rights to stock photographs. Photo stock can be procured through traditional stock giants, such as Getty Images or Corbis; smaller microstock agencies, such as Fotolia; or web marketplaces, such as Cutcaster.