Photographers
My little jaunts through the BLS job banks are continually throwing up surprises. Who would have thought that there were 129,000 professional photographers in the US? It’s one of those numbers that makes me sit back and think ‘Whoa!’. Then reality kicks back in and I begin to add together all those wedding guys, the portrait ones, the industrial, commercial and the photojournalists and it makes sense again.
Anyway, I think we all know what a photographer actually does so what about the training? To get into the more desirable jobs it is now pretty much necessary to have a college degree in the subject. Such college degrees in photography are offered at many universities, also at junior colleges, vocational schools and so on. It’s also training offered by the military: good experience there is very useful indeed in getting a job as a photojournalist, most especially covering a war (which, amazingly, is what Al Gore’s army service was).
Now, what do we think would be the brain type best suited to this job? From our EQSQ personality tests, would we think that a male or female brain type would be best? Something a little difficult actually, as the subject itself is intensely technical. Not just working out the light and settings: although digital cameras now mean that photographers don’t do their own developing, that’s been replaced by all the time they spend using photoshop. So that’s definite systemizing skills needed.
But there’s also something without which no one can be a decent photographer. What’s known as ‘the eye’. An instinctive knowledge about how to compose the image, the one micro-second when everything is just right. That to me sounds very much like an empathic skill. You can have all the technical knowledge in the world, all the systemizing skills themselves, but if you don’t have that eye you’re not going to make it professionally.
So I think we’d have to say that those with the balanced brain type would be best at being photographers, don’t you?
November 24th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
Huh! I didn’t know that the military trained photojournalists! Although, now that I think about it, Dr. Seuss, for example, was hired back in the day by the military to write documentaries. Similar sort of deal.
I’m still left wondering: Do the military trained photojournalists tend to publish in the regular press? How does that influence the way in which war or any government activity is portrayed and therefore understood in the national consciousness? Is a military trained photojournalist in many ways producing propaganda? (Dr. Seuss certainly ’twas.)
Well, I dug around a bit to find some answers to these questions. I came across an interview with a photojournalist who has military training in the U.S. Navy. I didn’t find any answer to my questions. But I did read some interesting advice for young photojournalists. Like they should learn traditional and digital technology to give editors a choice between the two. And consider sleep optional. The guy interviewed makes the job sound like a meaningful and challenging adventure.
November 26th, 2006 at 3:46 am
And for those poor souls photographing the little visitors in Sears and JCPenney’s in malls across the country, a high degree of empathy (and patience and some extra sanity stuffed beneath the mattress) is required.
News photography would be rewarding, I imagine, and require a great deal of empathy. How else could one create such a work as this:
http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2005/breaking-news-photography/works/warzone05.html
This photo, of a mother grieving over her young son’s body, is in a category far removed from clicking away at a shiny-shoed, ribbon-haired little one with mom in the background clapping and playing peek-a-boo for the sake of one smile.
December 1st, 2006 at 6:43 pm
The military very much does train photojournalists. All those newspapers like Army Times use them. Plus all of those, as you say, propaganda shots. The military does sometimes have some intelligence, you know? The same skills are also required in a lot of intelligence gathering work as well….you know, the more traditional form of military intelligence.
I don’t think that military photographers are used by the mainstream newspapers though. A lot of ex-military are (one friend is a war journo) capitalising on the training and experience, but not from serving people.
Lucy, I agree, there are different forms of empathy,m but I can’t imagine a photographer (well, a successful one) who didn’t have at least one type of it. Have a look around for the photos of Henri Cartier Bresson. He seemed to have just the magical touch of being able to release the shutter at that perfect micro-second. Pure empathy that.