Press photographer: Career development

In order to progress your career, it's vital to keep up to date with advances in technology so that you can improve your images and send them quickly. Most photographers have the means to email, retouch and print images on the spot.

Photographers are spending more and more time on computers improving images for that perfect photograph. Digital photographic libraries can be easily created on the internet with easy-to-use software, enabling your work to be viewed and sold all over the world.

Apart from improving your skills, you can develop your career as a press photographer in several ways, including:

• moving to a national daily newspaper and gaining seniority within the team;
• moving within the magazine field to higher level positions;
• specialising in particular areas of photography, such as sport, the arts, fashion or advertising;
• moving between newspapers and magazines to broaden experience;
• setting up your own practice with other photographers, or working freelance;
• becoming a picture editor or running a picture library.

There is a structured career path within local papers that you may choose to follow: from junior press photographer to senior press photographer, and through to chief photographer or ultimately picture editor.

It may not always be easy to move between different fields of photography. Once you have specialised in one area, you may find that you have been pigeonholed by clients.

There is also an option to move into photojournalism, where the photographer also takes on a certain amount of writing. However, generally speaking, photographers are unlikely to make the move from being a photographer to a journalist.