how to get started as a photojournalist

Growing up I thought I wanted to be a PJ. I mean, I was really pretty sure that that was what I was going to do. But by the time I was finishing college in the early '90s I had come to the realization that being a professional scientist would put me in a less competitive field than being a professional photographer (at least, doing the kind of professional photography that I would have actually wanted to do). Things are even worse now.

Although I'm now in a ridiculously competitive career, I have almost never regretted this choice, and I'm reasonably certain that my analysis was correct. It is much easier to be a serious amateur photographer than to be a pro, but it is easier to be a professional scientist than it is to be an amateur. My advice is this: at this particular moment in the history of the photography buiness, if you are having to ask questions ("should I do it?" "how do I go about it?"), the answer is "no" -- you should not try to make your living from it. It's so tough out there that you're already missing the knowledge, or the drive, needed to succeed. Or both.

Harsh words, but this is a harsh era for that field.

Don't quit photography. Do plan to earn your bread in other ways.

Put differently: this is a golden age for serious photographers -- but not for professional photographers.
 
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How you feeling now, son? Pretty sh*tty prospects, no? Welcome to the industry. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry will tell you to F off. Again, if you need to do this, do it. You will find a way. 😀
 
Wow, so much negativity.

Email VU, ask them?

You don't have to spend thousands and travel to another continent to tell a story. If you travel from place to place you will only ever be a tourist.
 
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dan_sutton said:
I have also flirted with the idea of showing up in a recruiting office and say I'll ship tomorrow if its with a camera, not a gun. I just want to do this but don't know how.
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That will get a good laugh. You might as well say you will go to war with a banjo.
 
You know, it's one of those things where if you are serious enough about wanting to do it you will find a way. No amount of friendly negativity (Is that possible? If it is, that is what I was trying to achieve) will stop you, for some it may even inspire them. I sincerely wish the OP the best of luck, seek advice from those you trust and take the rest with a grain of salt.

If you will it, it is no dream...
- Theodor Herzl (and later Walter Sobchak)
 
pachuco said:
You know, it's one of those things where if you are serious enough about wanting to do it you will find a way. No amount of friendly negativity (Is that possible? If it is, that is what I was trying to achieve) will stop you, for some it may even inspire them. I sincerely wish the OP the best of luck, seek advice from those you trust and take the rest with a grain of salt.

If you will it, it is no dream...
- Theodor Herzl (and later Walter Sobchak)
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That's certainly true. But it would be either deeply dishonest, or completely stupid and ignorant, to be bouncy and 'positive' for the sake of not beng 'negative'. I wonder how many of those who level the charge of being 'negative' have ever tried to earn (let alone succeeded in earning) any money at all from photojurnalism, let alone a consistent living. Anyone who is not put off by realistic advice may, indeed, have a chance of success.
 
Yep, a lot of negative (realistic?) answers here, but as it has been said several times over, if you are hell bent and determined to do this and you got some talent, you will find a way. It's just not going to be easy, but if it's in your blood there's not much you can do about it (but do it). Just be prepared that you will probably have to find a way to augment your income as PJ doing other things and you're still going to be living on thin ice.

But think of it like this. Let's say your career as a PJ only lasts for 10 years, because of the scraping by. Well, in my book 10 years is better than never having done it at all.

Again, if I was in my 20's, not my 30's I would give it a serious shot, but at the moment that's not the best choice for me and I need to approach things in a roundabout way.
 
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My approach is this, and my approach is one bound for the stop to Nowheresville Halt but screw it I'm having fun 🙂

And that's it, the thing is, I would like at some point in my life even if it was like Lartigue in his 70s to have been accredited with some minor plaudits for a couple of good photos but I'm not banking on it.

So, I'm 27 (as of today) so let's say we're the same age. All I'm doing is doing projects, shooting the things I am interested in, assembling them into projects. It might come to absolute bugger all, but I don't really feel the need to 'change the world' for everyone, I'm just quite happy to capture life as I see it perhaps if only for myself to say that before I snuff it, I took some good photos and did my best to visually manifest what it is I feel inside, what I see in things. Seems an eminently reasonable goal to me, and achievable so long as I don't disappoint myself.

Even these personal projects (my current one being Milton Keynes) require as I have learnt bundles of enthusiasm, grit, determination, bolshiness, tenacity, pig-headedness at times, and a fighting spirit to get what you want, but that makes it fun too. This project has had some moderate publicity in MK, I've got some exhibitions out of it, I'm photographing the portraits of many of the original management, architects and planners of the new town, something I never imagined I would acheive and it's all been a lot of fun. It still may come to diddly squat, in fact that's quite likely, but I will have something out of it. Namely a few folks who will buy books, I will have a copy myself to put on my shelf, and I'll have the experience and passion to work on my next project knowing that you can do this even if you haven't got one qualification, one prize, three letters or naff all to your name.

Nothing is guaranteed in life, so that's all the more reason to take your chances cos no one else will take them for you.

Vicky
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
There's nothing wrong with negativity if its the truth. I personally despise liars and would rather hear the truth rather than have someone mislead me because they think being 'negative' is somehow bad.
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Op asked a question that was met with a barrage of negativity and some criticism of his course. I pointed it out...
 
Dear Mark,

No, not negativity, realism. To borrow the old HUAC formula, are you now, or have you ever been, a professional photojournalist? 'Cos quite a lot of those who've responded have tried it, or have good friends who've tried it, or both.

Cheers,

R.
 
_mark__ said:
Op asked a question that was met with a barrage of negativity and some criticism of his course. I pointed it out...
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Just realism. Photojournalism always was among the worst paid and most unsafe photographic occupations, and amalgamation and syndication of the press have made it even worse in recent times.

The time when two or even three man teams (writer/photographer/editor) were put onto a high profile job are almost gone, if you make your entry into the profession now, you can only do it as a combined writer/photographer person, doing the job of the above three for less than the salary of one of them. The bottom end of the press has done away with journalists ever leaving their office and has them edit their stories entirely from press releases, agency snippets and Wikipedia entries.

For the surviving journalists doing field work, the weight is on writing - even the best writer can only deliver a very limited number of variations of a story at a time, while the editors are not entirely wrong in believing that any accompanying 8GB card full of AF/AE snapshots will contain something printable, at least after the photoshop department has been over it. The inverse, a expert photographer travelling with a single shot large format camera and a band of typewriting monkeys that generate millions of random variations on the story topic, has not been invented yet...

If the OP really wants to get into it, the answer is simple: Become a expert writer - photographic skills as a bonus might get you an extra job or two...

Sevo
 
Roger Hicks said:
That's certainly true. But it would be either deeply dishonest, or completely stupid and ignorant, to be bouncy and 'positive' for the sake of not beng 'negative'. I wonder how many of those who level the charge of being 'negative' have ever tried to earn (let alone succeeded in earning) any money at all from photojurnalism, let alone a consistent living. Anyone who is not put off by realistic advice may, indeed, have a chance of success.
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Hey, I hear you man. I think my previous post was lumped in as "negative" where as all I was trying to do was give the guy an honest perspective from a working PJ. My last post was just an attempt to not crush the OP, plenty of photo editors around to do that. 🙁
 
There is a flip side to this coin, I won't call it the 'loaded coin of negativity', you dont seem to like that.

People do become succesful in their chosen field despite great odds and they produce the work that is currently defining the industry, who is to say that the op will not go on to do this given some encouragement rather than the other
 
_mark__ said:
There is a flip side to this coin, I won't call it the 'loaded coin of negativity', you dont seem to like that.

People do become succesful in their chosen field despite great odds and they produce the work that is currently defining the industry, who is to say that the op will not go on to do this given some encouragement rather than the other
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Piffle.

In life, there are better choices and there are worse choices. In the current media and business climate, trying to be a PJ, for the vast majority of aspirants, would be a bad choice. Many good and talented people who could have made a living at this 15 or 20 years ago (and in many cases, did), now can't. Tons of highly motivated talent out there, not so much paid work.

Then, and even more so now, PJ was/is not a career for the thin skinned or the easily dissuaded.

If the OP has the drive required to succeed in the present environment, the nattering of a few people at a forum for users of archaic and obsolete camera equipment ;-) will not deter him. If he is so deterred, when confronted by the very real challenges of the profession, he will not succeed.
 
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I must be really blind: there was no negativity here. Nobody said "forget about it, you'll die in the process." In fact, people used their life story as examples of the things the OP may meet in the course of realizing his dream. If what they said wasn't to your liking, Mark... then don't do it, but don't go about calling it "negativity" because it's not.
 
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