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need more information pertaining to photography?

Im in high school looking at career options and I absolutely love taking nature pictures, and animal pictures. I would like a job as a Photographer that would travel the world taking pictures.This career seems a little too good to be true though, so I would like to know what a photographer actually has to do, is it hard to get a job? do they pay well? Are there very few openings for the photography I'm interested in?

I had the exact same question a little later in my life than you, but I wanted to be a commercial photographer. With some perseverance, guidance and luck I had a fairly good career in NYC as a commercial photographer for almost 25 years. A lot has changed in the photography business in the past 25 years, but if one has a passion for doing something with their life then generally little can stop them. Easily the most direct route to realize your wish would be to travel the world taking photographs and show them to people who purchase that type of photography and if you sell your photos and collect enough profit you can live on you have reached your goal. While there may be "jobs" in this field, generally you have your own business in which companies hire you to do a story and send you off to a far away place, but more and more that is not the situation. Stock photography has replaced many of the projects in which companies hired specific photographers for specific stories. Of course there are exceptions but the trend has been towards purchasing stock(photos that have already been taken) at a significantly reduced price to the customer. The advent of digital photography greatly accelerated this transition to stock from commissioned photography. The course of action I took, was a brief stint at photography school, produced a portfolio, got a job as a photo assistant, took drawing classes in the evenings and weekends, produced more and more photographs and with the help of some very valuable constructive critiquing from some very talented artists, produced a body of work that enabled me to get hired enough to make a living. It took me about 8 years from my first day at photo school to the first month I made enough money to live from my photography exclusively. What you can try now(as a high school student) is to do photos that you have a passion or some sort of real connection with and once you have completed a body of work you are excited about, try approaching a couple of stock photo agencies and see if others are attracted to your photos. This might be a starting point for your photography career. I found drawing classes(from a good teacher) to be most valuable and in fact help me to see. Good luck!!!

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