Making the Most of Your Photo
Skills in Your Future Career

An article in a national magazine told about a famous fashion designer who went on location with the photographer responsible for creating the special look of his ads. The fashion designer not only worked alongside the photographer but actually appeared in some of the hundreds of pictures taken over a period of three days The fashion designer also helped edit the pictures into an advertising campaign.

One of the popular photography magazines included an article about a guitarist for one of the top British musical groups. Between performances on tour, this musician captured abstract and surrealistic views of behind-the-scenes action with his 35 mm camera. His photographs, which mirror his personal experiences as well as his musical taste, have been published in a book.

A feature newspaper article about a major new restaurant included an extensive interview with the head chef. While this head chef acknowledged that he grants complete creative freedom to his pastry chef, he admitted that he regularly uses color photographs of carefully designed entrees as a quality-control guideline for those who must prepare them, day after day.

Every day, you come in contact with newspapers (daily or weekly), magazines (mass-circulation or special-interest) and books (textbooks and leisure-reading paperbacks and hardcovers). If you pick up the home remodeling magazine on the end table, you may notice an article about an architect who shows potential customers slides of creative solutions to past clients' problems. Yes, you can be a "photo in career" detective without leaving your living room. So, what are you waiting for?

EXERCISE: During the next month or so, make an effort to read articles about people involved in different careers. Notice how they use photography in their work. If they make no mention of photography, try to imagine how the photo skills you currently possess might make their jobs easier. Keep notes on your findings, and your imaginings, for use in future presentations to other 4-H Club members. Select a career you have read about. Do a layout of how photography could enhance that person's job.

A speech pathologist became frustrated with the preventable speech defects she kept encountering in her four- and five-year-old patients. To do something positive, she produced a slide/tape program about speech/language development from birth through age three. The program currently is shown to new parents in her hospital's maternity ward.

A management trainee in a snack-food manufacturing company discovered that his theoretical chemical engineering training couldn't help him fix machines and reorganize operations. His ability to take close-up pictures, however, enabled him to suggest changes simply by marking his own photographic enlargements.

The young makers of a classic kit car wanted to establish the quality difference between their kit and the kits marketed by their competitors. They decided to show a photo rather than a sketch in their magazine advertisement and to answer inquiries with a four- color, photo-illustrated brochure.

You know plenty of people who work. Do they ever use photo skills to enhance their efforts? Maybe the home economics teacher at your school uses photos of table settings in his/her teaching. Maybe your principal uses photography to publicize school activities or to brighten up a parent newsletter. Perhaps a lawyer you know uses photos in the process of prosecuting or defending clients. Perhaps a neighbor who works in real estate uses pictures of listings to help sell houses or buildings or vacation property. Even the furnace installer who comes to your home may demonstrate the superiority of his sheet-metal work in pictures of previous installations.

EXERCISE: Talk with people who are working at different kinds of jobs. Find out if they have any knowledge of photography and if that knowledge ever helps them in their work. Start with Mom and Dad, grown sisters and brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. Canvas neighbors, teachers, former 4-H members, and acquaintances whose occupations interest you. If you have an interest in a particular occupation or field of endeavor, seek out people currently doing what you think you might like to be doing "for a living" someday.

1. Gather samples of photo applications whenever possible. Make notes about other applications. Think about the most interesting ways -- puppet shows, skits, panel discussions, slide shows, games -- in which you could present your findings to other 4-H'ers currently involved in the photography project.

   Determine how your presentation might differ if you were presenting the information as part of a photo project recruitment program. If possible, make a formal or informal presentation of your findings.

2. Get permission to spend some time working alongside someone who says he or she never uses photography on the job. Note ways in which photo skills might help that person to do the job better or more easily. With the help of the person you have shadowed, prepare a written plan of action and a budget to present to their employer.

Could your photo skills actually turn into a photographic career? It's possible but not probable. That's because photography itself makes up just one small portion of the career opportunities available. Even photographic manufacturers hire very few photographers. If you’ve ever participated in a job traceback on a roll of film, you’d understand why. Researchers and marketers, and accountants and assembly-line workers make up the world of photographic manufacturing.

Still, if photography is your favorite avocation right now, you may want to investigate its vocational side. Again, you can keep your investigation close to home.

EXERCISE: Perhaps you know a neighbor whose grown son or daughter works for a large portrait studio in another state. Find out exactly what he or she does on the job. Does he/she take photos on his/her own time as well? What kind of education does he/she have? What work experience? Or, try to obtain the same kind of information from the photographer who takes your school or yearbook pictures. Ask about working hours as well as chances for advancement.

1. Survey local photo-oriented businesses:

   • Go to one or more local portrait studios and find out about the educational and job-related backgrounds of the employees as well as the owner. Ask about photographic suppliers (such as professional color labs) with whom the studios work. Continue your career investigation at the color lab, if possible. Keep a ledger of job descriptions and education requirements.

   • Go to your local camera store and ask about the kinds of jobs available and the kinds of skills and training required. If the camera store works with a separate photofinisher, try to continue your investigation there.

   • Go to your local newspaper (a weekly might be more accessible in bigger cities). Find out about as many photo-related jobs, such as photo-journalist, picture editor and page designer, as you can. Follow up additional leads as they present themselves.

2. Organize a program for all local participants in the 4-H photo project. Share information about these photo-oriented careers. Provide information about the photographic services offered by these local businesses and about the possibilities for part-time employment while going to school.

An artist, after several years of work as an art director and cartoonist, decides to get an advanced degree that will give him the skills necessary to make his artwork move. He finds only occasional work in animation. However, his skills -- and his sense of whimsy -- help him obtain steady employment in local television.

A university-trained videographer patches together part-time employment, mostly teaching in public schools, with temporary and free- lance assignments for local corporations. Although previously interested in video exclusively as a fine art, he has discovered that he enjoys the give-and-take of commercial video assignments that now help him earn a living.

A history teacher, after 10 years in the classroom, finds herself increasingly interested in computers rather than curriculum. She takes as many computer courses as she can, makes as many computer-oriented moves as possible within her high-school environment, and then finally requests a leave of absence to investigate career alternatives.

Being educated for a specific job doesn't guarantee that you'll find work in that particular field. Neither does a specialized education guarantee that you'll like the job for which you've been educated -- once you get your foot in the door. Often, those who work full-time in any specialized field, including photography, start out with a liberal arts education. They may add a strong major or an advanced degree, but they always have their broad-based education as a cushion and, when necessary, a springboard.

A producer of multimedia shows for a major photographic manufacturer, for instance, started out with a degree in modern languages and a hobby-type interest in taking pictures. Once he got a job with the photo company, he started accepting assignments that gradually evolved into his exciting occupation of blending still and motion pictures to entertain and inform.

A writer-producer of television programs for a major oil company began her career in employee relations with a degree in American Studies and six years of serious 35 mm photography. Her background as a high- school newspaper editor and actress in school plays helped her acquire the necessary on-and off-camera skills quickly while doing her work.

Even if you don't plan to go to college immediately after high school, you may be able to use your photo skills in military service or in an entry-level position with an organization that believes in ongoing training and promotion from within.

A graphic artist in a gas and electric company brought a high-school diploma, four years in the Air Force and several high-school industrial arts awards to his entry-level job in the printing department. Sixteen years later, he not only supervises the layout and design area of the print shop (where he occasionally uses a graphic arts camera), he also produces his finished layouts on the latest computer graphics system. Along the way, he took college-level evening courses, company-sponsored management courses, and supplier-sponsored computer courses to supplement his on-the-job training.

EXERCISE: Choose one of the people you've met in your investigation of career options. Conduct an extensive interview, tape-recorded if possible, to learn exactly how this person achieved the career success and/or satisfaction he or she enjoys today. Ask the person to share advice with you and other young people thinking about career preparation and choices.

1. Work with other 4-H’ers to establish and run a local career day. Devise ways to communicate the information you've gathered in your search for answers. Ask some of the most interesting local workers you and your friends have met to participate in a panel discussion followed by a question-and-answer period.

2. Take black-and-white pictures at your career day and submit captioned prints, with a brief article, to your local newspaper. Even go a step further and suggest that your local weekly newspaper -- or your own school newspaper -- consider running a regular column profiling individuals succeeding in interesting jobs and careers.

One woman, educated and licensed as a nurse, went into nursing simply because her mother was a nurse. Today, this young mother of four brims with creative art and decoration ideas that she hopes to put to use in a small, craft-oriented business. "She was always an artist," says her mother, "but she thought nursing was a sure thing.

Another woman, a medical technologist, got tired of hospital shifts and routine assignments after several years on the job. She reduced her working hours while she pursued a degree in music. Today!, she teaches piano and composes songs.

A man, the office systems supervisor for a major grocery chain, left law school after his first semester to fulfill his military obligation. After service, he obtained his master's degree in education. Instead of teaching, however, he worked for several corporations that sold equipment or services to schools. The management and supervision skills he learned in his first two jobs enabled this father of two to accept a much more responsible and lucrative position far afield from his educational background .

Another man, who left college for the solitary life of a carpenter and all-around fix-it man, discovered, after some time, that he missed the intellectual stimulation of working with others. He started interviewing people whose jobs intrigued him in hopes of establishing a professional goal he could move towards while finishing college.

What most adults won't -- or don't --tell most teenagers is that what they are doing today reflects not one, but a series of choices. Those choices may have started back in high school, but they certainly didn't end there. Nor did they end in college. Even after college, the choices continue to multiply -- at work, at home, in leisure pursuits. It's important to work at a career that you enjoy and that is satisfying.

EXERCISE: Just for the fun of it, see how many people you can find who are -- or are not -- working in the field for which they were educated. You may find, for instance, a market planner for a chemical company who, in his early career, worked as a chemist after obtaining a degree in agriculture. Prepare a chart to show some of the choices this person has made over the years.

No matter what career direction you decide to take, your photographic ability will be an asset. But, can it really help you get a job?

A journalism graduate, who had taken only one photography course in college, included her best 8 x 1 0-inch prints in the portfolio of writing samples she brought around to prospective employers. On her second stop, an ad agency creative director changed the order of the prints and sent the applicant to see the head of the public relations division The PR director liked her words and her pictures, gave her free-lance writing assignment as a test and hired her full-time a week later.

Through the years, this writer has had to supervise the production of pictures, edit the work of free-lance photojournalists, and develop photo ideas to illustrate her stories and scripts. Much of the rest of her time is spent writing -- about photography. In fact, she wrote and selected the illustrations for this booklet. Develop a photography portfolio of your work to use on job interviews or to show your capabilities. Be sure to include any special effects or treatments.

EXERCISE: Start using your photo skills now, if you haven't already, to help you do a better job -- at school, at home, in your 4-H Club activities, in your volunteer and paid part-time work. Keep a portfolio of your best photography to show just what you can do. Let photography lead you into other areas -- biking, hiking, sailing, art, music, theater, architecture -- where you can acquire still other skills. Get set to enjoy the choices photography will open up to you - - as you pursue your education and your future career.