Daughter wants to be a photo journalist

[guitstik]

My daughter wants to be a photo journalist and one of her High School classes has assigned her with doing a report on the career of her choice.

The problem is that she is ill prepared and the assignment is due the first of December. Are there any pro shooters that could give her some information for her paper? I will turn this post over to her so that she can fill in what it is that she needs.

DAUGHTER:
I need Nature of The Work. Including:
An explanation of what the occupation consists of.

Education:
What is needed to become a photographer?
What sort of background is needed?

Experience:
See education.

Earnings:
The earning part is simple.
what is the estimated job outlook and earnings expected to make in this field.
The starting, median and highest earnings.

I plan on doing mainly band photography, for magazines such as AP(Alternative Press) magazine.

This is still his daughter. I'm extremely desperate for this information.

[David William White]

This is for 'up here', but I suppose is rather universal: http://npac.ca/?p=556

This is from our News Photographers Association of Canada. Read this article, find your equivalent association in the US, check out the college courses close to you. Hopefully this is of some help.

[mwelsh]

I'm not a photojournalist - but if I were you I might try looking in my local paper for somebody who is a photojournalist or google it and find some names. They might have personal websites with email information. Find at least ten that you could email and one or two will probably be availlable to respond. If you want to guarantee success email another ten. Photojournalists are probably really busy people so I'm sure it would be a numbers game to get the information you need quickly. In the mean time there might be somebody here that can help you also. I don't know if there is or not. I don't think you should wait for a response just on here though. Time is not on your side. You need to do everything you can to get the information you need. Hope this helps.

[jnanian]

contact the asmp ( asmp.org )
they will have some of the information
that she is looking for.

good luck !
john

[Removed Account2]

Photojournalist?

An endangered species! Today its video and youtube thats the name of the game.

On Haiti when the earthquake hit, the newspapers and the networks alarmed the journalists on site :

They did NOT want photograps! They wanted video. And photograpers on site (there very very few of them initially) was instructed not to take pictures, but use their cameras, including their SLRs as videocameras, even if the video quality was below par.

Why? Because those who got the first video out could sell it to TV networks, and the pictures required to illustrate the video on Youtube could be gravbbed from the film itself.

Commenting on this a veteran photojournalist said that in just a few years there would be no photograpers, no photojournalists, but a buch of kids making video for Youtube ands selling it cheap to the networks....

If it was my daughter, I'd steer her in another direction!

[FiatluX]

Commenting on this a veteran photojournalist said that in just a few years there would be no photograpers, no photojournalists, but a buch of kids making video for Youtube ands selling it cheap to the networks....

If it was my daughter, I'd steer her in another direction!

Well, it was also said that analog photography was dead

It´s probably going to be much harder being a photojournalist nowadays, but if thats the chosen path at least in some countries there´s still prizes etc. to be won for "best news photograph of the year" or something similar..

Go for it!

[Removed Account2]

Analog photograpy IS dead. Because the photoshops are dead.

In most of the world its now impossible to buy film, save for a few big cities where one occasionally can find a hangout for nitwits like us!

I got a telephone from a friend who know my dark secret. He'd come across a camera, Canon EOS IX7. Asked if there was film for it.
"Yes, its called APS". "Could not find anyone selling film (for it) in the city's biggest mall, noone"
"bring the camera to me, I'll have a look" (and I'll take it off your hands for nothing!) <whistle>

Didn't you all notice, Kodak invested X millions in China, setting up film production lines, probably thinking they could live well from selling old technology to the "backward masses of China". After two years they sold off theire shares with hughe losses and pulled out, the chinese buy digital, and someone collects their thrown-out old fashioned film cameras dang cheap, turrns around and sell them with i hughe profit to us!

[Christopher Walrath]

Back on topic, sort of.

No matter career you ultimately settle upon, you will need a good work ethic, a drive to get things done and not wait until the last minute and risk not being able to complete your work. (Hint,hint). And the best way to do that, as with anything, is practice. And I think your schoolwork would be the perfect opportunity.

Get crackin' on those books and stop putting off assignments. Being cramped for time has a tendency of producing shoddy work. Get crackin' now and it will be easier later. Good luck.

[SuzanneR]

I'm not sure it's a completely dead profession, but it is one in transition. Traditional print media have far fewer pages these days, so there are fewer assignments. That said, people will be getting their news online and the photojournalist is going to have to understand how to create visual stories that are interactive. Look to what Ed Kashi is doing as a good model or Briam Storm of Media Storm to see the future of the profession. As for school, there are a number of roads to take in this regard... a photo school, journalism major, even a broad based liberal arts education can get you there. In other words, I don't think there's one track (like becoming a lawyer or a doctor, say) in getting your education for journalism. Sometimes the best journalists have expertise and education in one area, but are good writers and photographers on that subject.

It's a very difficult field to get started in... you have to master your craft, you have to be interested in making good pictures of whatever the assignment is, and you have to show a certain commitment and be persistent about it.

[Andrew Horodysky]

The University of Missouri's School of Journalism is one of the top programs in the country for the field -- they have a photojournalism concentration, which has consistently produced many practitioners servicing the hard news and editorial arena. See what information they have to offer: http://www.missouri.edu/index.php

I also agree with contacting the ASMP, and the suggestion of locating the photo editor of your nearest city paper for a "closer to home" perspective. Suzanne is right in suggesting that there is more than one way to enter this field; many (and I would venture to say most, even) are not trained formally, but come to the field from different disciplines and interests.