What are the Different Types of Photography?

In the present scenario variety of photograph models, techniques, and subject matters are available. The Outside world has many aesthetic scenes to capture for photographers. Some photographers are excellent to do with multiple photographic techniques. Some other photographers focus only on a particular style in their career. Amateur photographers deal with different themes and shootings to improve their skills. Here are 50 different types of photography available to create new memories, cherish love and make wonderful reminiscences in life.

Abstract Photography

Abstract Photography is experimental and is difficult to define. This kind of photography uses light, color, texture, shadow, and shape to induce feelings rather than focusing on objects or images. In simple terms, an isolated part of a particular object is presented creatively.

Adventure Photography

Adventure photography captures an individual’s adventure activities from the outdoors. It covers the adventure events like climbing mountains, hiking, snowshoeing, horseback adventure, and canoe. It involves the features of remarkable landscape locations, challenging shooting sports, and weather conditions.

Architectural Photography

Architectural Photography deals with exterior buildings and interior premises. This photography tends to give an accurate representation of building constructions to please the viewers. Photographers use ambient lighting like moonlight and street light to capture the building in the night and use daylight to capture the building along with nearby landscapes. They need to use perfect size and architectural size for most buildings. Photographers carve their niche with great efforts as in the contemporary world architecture field goes under many changes in the form of Postmodern, Gothic, Victorian, Modern, etc.

Astrophotography

Astrophotography has astronomical objects like stars, moon, and celestial happenings like a lunar eclipse, solar eclipse, and the cyclical phases of the Moon. The night sky serves as a black background for stars as a diamond in the photographic view. Telescopes are used to record certain miracles in the sky like falling stars, collisions, and meteor showers. Photographers take a long time to capture this event with film and digital cameras and they need to have patience by setting the right camera and employing the special techniques. Tripods, imaging sensors, and tracking mounts are tools needed for great astrophotography.

Black and White Photography

Black and White Photography focuses on an image without color. Nowadays this kind of photo can be taken through a camera setting or editing color images afterward. In the good old days, it is the only mode of photographs available everywhere. As technology advanced in the twentieth- century color photography is prevalent. Black and white are considered fine art photography these days. Some art films and other aesthetic motion pictures are taken with Black and white mode since it provokes nostalgic feelings and antique emotions.

Business Photography

Business Photography mainly captures an image for the growth of business and it is used for marketing and promotional purposes. This kind of photography includes images of business owners, team members, products, and their services. Other kinds of photography include Product photography, architecture photography, lifestyle photography and candid photography falls under business photography since they serve with business motto.

Candid Photography

Candid Photographs are casual photographs taken in spontaneous, surprise, and emotions of people. Photographers should focus on the subjects in a natural state without the need to direct or pose them in the right direction to get an image. With proper consent from a person, photographers can take images without any awareness of the photo being taken by using small equipment that is often discreet in order not to disturb subjects. This includes the images of facial expressions, authentic scenes, and reactions of the person. Flash photography is not common when taking candid pictures since it causes people to alter their behavior towards less natural and control their position.

Cityscape Photography

Cityscape Photography takes images of city skylines or sections of a metropolis. This can be taken during the day or night time. Wide-angle lenses and telephoto lenses are used in the camera to cover large sections of a city. Higher elevations, rooftops, or top floors of high-rises are the options for great shots. Sunset scenes and sunrise click of golden color background with city-landscape will be a wonderful image.  

Commercial Photography

Commercial Photographs are taken for commercial use to sell a product or service. Photographers take shots of the product used in marketing collateral like brochures, pamphlets, menu cards, and catalogs. A Variety of photographs like food photography, costume photography, product photography, fashion photography, medicine photography, and beyond comes under commercial services. Photographers must satisfy the client’s needs.

Composite Photography

Composite Photography includes combining multiple images to create one image. This photography has post-processing and editing work. It takes several hours to complete one composite picture due to its complexity. Composite photography nowadays is done by layering images one on top of one another and then removing unwanted pieces using different methods. Particular faces appear many times in one image. Merging animals and humans in a single picture. Melting of building in the form of a human face is unique, artistic, and incredible creativity in composite photography.

Creative Photography

Creative Photography includes a vast variety of concepts and techniques. It has an intersection with composite photography. It adopts a new approach to give a certain mood, focus on a certain theme which is not common. Some of the techniques include double exposure, motion blur, get macro, Bokeh, and painting. Cutting and pasting images to create a collage as final work. High dynamic range photography and forced perspective photography fall under this niche. Cake Smash photoshoots for babies and toddlers are another form of creative photography.

Documentary Photography

Documentary Photography encapsulates a wide range of approaches usually refers to art that captures real moments or historical events. It attempts to record world events from the wide angles of war to close-up shots of people on the street. It informs the audience about the hidden corners of contemporary life on various topics like environment, social events, or topics extended to a particular period of time. Photojournalism usually deals with shorter-term as “breaking news” style of photography.

Drone Photography

Drone Photography is called aerial photography and it captures scenes from high in the sky. It requires helicopters, planes, and other airborne objects to access. In recent times many photographers use the drone to captures picture rather than flying in aircraft with cameras. Unmanned aerial vehicles commonly as drones allow photographers to take pictures automatically or remotely. Many countries have regulations to use drones. Drone photography is mainly used to create maps, archeology, movie production, an inspection of power lines, and other surveillance.

Double-Exposure Photography

Double-Exposure Photography is used to create the merging of two images into one. This kind of photography involves special cameras and film development techniques to bring surreal and ghostly quality to the pictures. Editing software like Photoshop helps to achieve the effect. Apps are now available to produce this effect on the smartphone. There is no limit to creativity in this photography. The photographers take base photos, then the layer photo is merged with two other images to get one. The base photo can be edited before merging with other photos.

Editorial Photography

Editorial photography is usually used in the editorial pages of newspapers and magazines. It covers the area of politics, sports, fashion, and other events. It is meant to give information and education to the public since it is published along with the article tends to support what the write-up is. It has licensing authority.

Event Photography

Event Photography includes events of the wedding, birthday parties, award ceremonies, conferences, public meetings, dances, temple celebrations, festival occasions, and beyond. Some of the event photography focuses on gatherings, guests, and activities at a particular time. This photography can be used for business, commercial, personal sentiment value.

Family Photography

Family Photography involves taking pictures of family members in posed or candid posture especially to hang in the home for good memories. This photography could be taken at wedding occasions, family reunions, and other ceremonies to show the intimacy of relations. It reveals the authentic feeling and tender moments caught between family members at that time.

Fashion Photography

Fashion Photography is the oldest kind of photography. It involves the practice of capturing models in clothing and other fashion accessories for advertising or editorial purpose. Fashion shots can be taken in a studio or outside landscape location or live fashion shows which capture different dress models and walk. Hair and makeup artists prefer this kind of photography to showcase their models on clothing and other accessories which will serve as a catalog.

Film Photography

Film Photography emerged in the late 1800s and is the precursor to digital photography. Safety film was introduced by Kodak in 1908. Previous iterations of the film were used as early as 1889 made from nitrocellulose referred to as nitrate film. Colour film was introduced for home movies in 1935 by Kodachrome. Colour films use multiple layers and filters to capture an image. Black and white processing was less complex than color. Film size and speed are both factors to consider when shooting on film. As technology grows consumers left behind the film and moves to digital formats. Most of them use digital cameras and few others still use film photographic techniques to create amazing photos using fully manual settings or analog cameras. This photography needs a deeper understanding for photographers on changing settings and camera functions.

Fine Art Photography

Fine art photography brings idea, concept, message, or emotion to life in imagery through the creative artistic view. This photography conveys a special feeling to the viewer. These images are often framed and displayed as art on the walls like paintings. It is popular in the Victorian era and evolves in the present day. The subject of the photography includes nude photography, landscape, and portraits.

Food Photography

Food is the main content in this photography. It includes the subject matters like kitchen ingredients, kitchen scenes, and arrangement of utensils and plated dishes to attract the viewers. This kind of photography becomes advertisements in magazines, blogs, and menus in cookbooks. Extreme Close angle of images will give more effect on the fully plated dish and ingredients.

Golden Hour Photography

Golden Photography refers to the hour before sunset or the hour after sunrise in which the sun is the lowest point in the sky producing a warm, golden tone as background lighting. Golden hour photography features less contrast than the images captured during the day when the sun is higher overhead, creates strong highlights and dark shadows. Blue hour Photography contrasts golden hour photography as it captures the image in the hour after sunset and before sunrise, the indirect sunlight produces a blueish colder tone across the sky.

Holiday Photography

This kind of Photography captures the image of holiday time like Christmas, New Year, Ramzan, other religious and seasonal holidays. Authenticity plays a vital role in this photography. Christmas photographs can be taken with the background of snow, winter fall Since Christmas falls under the winter season, Christmas trees and lightings. Holidays in summer can capture the scenes of beach shores, swimming pools, and hot sun.

Indoor Photography

Indoor Photography captures the image inside. Photographers use minimal flash photography to capture scenes due to limited lighting. This photography shows images inside the home, workplace, and other sheltered buildings. The Lighting effect is the most challenging aspect of this photography. Additional lighting sources capture the images effectively. The Sunlight inside the home also serves as a good effect for this photography.

Infrared Photography

Infrared Photography film or image sensors sensitive to infrared light are needed to capture images. Filters are used in-camera effects such as false color or black and white to deliver images with a dreamlike or unreal quality to them. They focus on dark skies and atmospheric haze. Post-processing software also helps photographers to achieve this effect. Ultraviolet photography is similar to infrared but captures images using light from the ultraviolet spectrum (UV). The wood effect is mainly caused by shades are captured by using the infrared spectrum.

Landscape Photography

Landscape Photography captures outdoor landscapes like trees, deserts, beaches, forest backgrounds, mountain ranges like rivers, lakes, the sea, and other natural aspects of the world. Seasonal changes, weather, light scenes are all under this photography. Photographers use pure natural scenes devoid of human influence or artificial activity. This photography involves the camera setting such as shutter speed, aperture, and using different lenses or filters to create various effects.

Lifestyle Photography

Lifestyle Photography captures people in real-life situations. Scenes are posed and directed by the photographer, but images look like mere natural. Sometimes look like candidly. It overlaps with fashion photography, documentary photography, and family photography as it tries to capture snapshots of the subject’s lives. These shots can be used for personal use, framed in the family home, for commercial or editorial use to inspire or promote a particular approach to everyday life.

Long Exposure Photography

Long Exposure photography is also known as time exposure or slow-shutter photography. It takes a longer time to capture the scenes sharply. It is different from conventional photography since it takes much time to capture an image over an extended period of time instead of a single snapshot. It mainly focuses on running water from waterfall and stream to create an effect around the water. It uses lights like street lamps, headlights, and celestial lightings of stars and moon in the night to create the effect using long exposure duration.

Macro Photography

Macro Photography is an extreme close-up of very small objects. Insects, flowers, and plants are the important subject matter in this genre. Other images include close-up shots of food, water droplets, toys, eyes, jewelry, fabrics, and feathers of abstract patterns and textures. This photography requires specialized lenses to capture the true reproduction ratio of the image. Extended tubes are also used to extend lenses for close-up and personal capture.

Milky Way Photography

Milky Way Photography focuses on an image of the Milky Way in the night sky. The photographers need to research what type of weather condition is required and when and where to shot to get the best image successfully.

Minimalist Photography

Minimalist Photography captures the image using limited, minimal elements. Colors, lines, patterns, shape, texture, and pattern play a big role in this type of photo. This kind of photography gives an image the look of the barrenness, neatness, and simplicity of limited elements in the shots. Natural scenes and landscapes usually before sunrise in the early morning, the darkness of night, and a wide view of the calm sea are the focus points in the picture.

Newborn Photography

Newborn Photography is closely related to family photography. It mainly focuses on capturing images of newborn babies. This photography includes the parents and gives a cozy look to the baby. Newborn photographers have studio space to ensure the safety and well-being of babies. It is easy to take the picture while babies are sleeping. Babies along with mother can be taken in a different pose to get the instinct feeling of bound. Anne Geddes is known for this Photography.

Night Photography

Photos are taken at nightfall under night photography. Camera settings are adjusted and special techniques are used to capture images in low-lit conditions. Night Photography focus on other subjects like city skylines, industrial scenes, factories, fireworks, nightlife, bodies of water lit by moonlight, amusement park rides, and other creative sources of light. Nowadays smartphones support night mode to facilitate night photography.

Pet Photography

Pet Photography captures the images of a two-legged and four-legged beloved. Birds, cats, dogs, horses, and even fish can be captured in a portrait manner for a family to cherish. Various accessories are needed in handy to set the pet for a pose. Candid shots are taken in this kind of multiple pets chasing one another on a beach, park, or in the home environment. The favorite person holding in hands or with other objects can be taken. Moving shots are possible for cats, rabbits, and others.

Photojournalism

Photojournalism uses images to tell a news story. This photography follows strict ethical standards. Photos are often used in news media or magazine editorials. Photojournalists are reporters who carry photography equipment to capture images to represent a news story concerning their safety. Social documentary photography is a form of photojournalism that records events around the world. It also highlights social issues of violence, a conflict between parties, and the struggles of a layman.

Portrait Photography

Portrait Photography captures the image of a single person or group of people. It is challenging since it conveys the personality of the subject in a single shot. Lighting with bright-lit shots is very important in this photography. Telephoto lenses are preferred to isolate the subject by controlling the depth of the background. Background blur helps to focus the subject with much clarity.

Product Photography

Product Photography captures objects for advertising purposes. Catalogs, brochures, and websites use this photography for advertisements. Clean Photography which has products on a white background, products with matching background color, techniques like knolling where objects are arranged in an organized and eye-pleasing way are some of the recent trends of this type.

Real Estate Photography

Real Estate images are used for commercial purposes to sell a home, office and to show beautifully executed designs. Interior photography and exterior photography are subgenres of this photography. Effective shots of rooms, spaces, and indoor lightings should be presented well for advertisement and commercial sale.

Seascape Photography

Seascape photography is the subcategory of landscape photography that focuses on capturing seas and oceans. Sometimes other objects or subjects in the shot like people in the water or on boats. Islands, cliffs, and other geographical information were captured along marine wildlife. Capturing the motion of waves, sunrise, and sunburst techniques are commonly employed in this photography.

Social Media Photography

Social Media Photography uses images for social media posts on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Linked In, and other social media. Personal posts tend to capture a moment or tell a story about a person’s life. In the commercial sector, this kind of photography is used to sell a product or service.

Sports Photography

Sports Photography captures the event of sports. This type of photography particularly involves photojournalism. It is used in newspapers and magazines and sometimes for advertising purposes. A Fast-paced photo needs to take with the shutter speed of the camera. Location is also important, and the camera lens has to work best to get a great image. Individual sports events like boxing. Cycling, skating, and swimming capture the intensity of the participants. Team sports like cricket, hockey, and football require various events and team coordination to shot.

Still-Life Photography

Still-life Photography pleasingly has an arrangement of inanimate objects for editorial, advertisement, and commercial purposes. It focuses on the creative and artistic view of a single image as a center. Lighting and framing are also important parts set up in this photography. It has the subject matter of food, flowers, plants, and other things. It arranges the household items like plates, dishes, and vases are arranged artistically and creatively. Photographers of all kinds take beautiful pictures without using complicated techniques.

Surreal Photography

Surreal Photography is similar to abstract photography since the final image is not recognizable immediately and makes the photographers find a unique perspective to capture. Surrealist photographers use darkroom tricks and illusions to produce dreamlike shots. Underwater portraits, underwater landscapes, supernatural beings are important subjects of surreal photography. Images are capture and edited afterward to give a surreal effect. It is unique in the way it gives dreamlike shots, a state of mind beyond imagination, and other hallucinations.

Street Photography

Street Photography captures the scene from streets and other public places. This photography involves candid and spontaneous shots. Photographers need to be aware of the law while taking public pictures and people involved in it. Capturing images without humans is also considered this kind of photography. Subject matter and people have no connection. It is less deliberate in purpose and conveying the message.

Time-Lapse Photography

Time-Lapse Photography involves the series of frames of the same scene or same subject matter to depict a state of change or fluctuation. The result of an image can be like scenes of the video. Subject matter includes the motion of the sun, stars, moon, and other celestial bodies in the sky. Vehicle moving after traffic signals, birds flying and animals running. This kind of photography is mainly to achieve their distinct moving quality. It uses short and long exposure times to modify the speed of the camera. High dynamic range imaging and day to night transitions can produce stunning imagery.

Travel Photography

Travel Photography documents a place and highlights cultural, historical, touristic, and iconic aspects of the particular area. It can be used for editorial and commercial purposes. It reveals the feeling an individual gets from the land, place, and culture that inhabit it. The Subject matter is broad in this photography. It aims to supply the perfect travel note evidence.

Underwater Photography

Underwater Photography captures the scene from underwaters like scuba diving, snorkeling, and swimming. These shots can be taken from the surface by an automated lowered camera or from an underwater vehicle. It focuses on an underwater marine system, pearl rocks, and aquatic living organisms underwater. Nowadays underwater photography is used to document the bodies of water and their ecosystems to analyze the issues of climate change and pollution. GoPro’s and smartphones in plastic pouches are used as a gateway for underwater photography. Shots underwater are challenging with the adjustment of lenses and need to ensure safety concerns of shooting environment water clarity, presence of waves, bubbles, currents, and dangerous marine life.

Urban Exploration Photography

Urban Exploration Photography is otherwise called travel photography. It focuses to capture abandoned places and long-forgotten ones. Some of the aspects of architectural photography like interior and exterior buildings are urban exploration photography. Subject matters like old, dilapidated, structurally questioned buildings are under this category. Background research is important before taking shots of buildings. Ambient lights and camera gear techniques are needed for this photography.

War Photography

War Photography overlaps with photojournalism, documentary photography, and war photography. It reflects terrible scenes in the war to give awareness to the public and is used for editorial purposes. This kind of photography becomes a good historical significance. It is a risky occupation for photographers to involve in war and take photos even though they have an international convention to prevent fatal injury.

Wedding Photography

Wedding Photography includes engagement photos, pre-wedding photos, and shots taken during and after the ceremony. There are many techniques involved in this photography to become specialized. The two most important approach available in this technique is the traditional approach and photojournalistic approach. The Traditional approach has posed images and photographer control throughout the event. The Photojournalistic approach has a more editorial feel and candid shots using little direction. The Culture and tradition of the couple play important than delivering creative and more dramatic imagery.

Wildlife Photography

Wildlife Photography needs great experience in the forest to take perfect shots. The photographer needs to have patience, safe shooting locations, and good fear are important in this photography. It takes long days to capture a single animal. The type of camera gear based and amount of preparation is based on the animal. Tripods, telephoto, shutter releases, and wide-angle camera lenses are required to take shots. Sometimes camera traps are set in a particular environment to record the movement of animals and their natural behaviors are not disturbed by photographers. It can be edited later and used for nation geography.

Work on different kinds of photography

There is a lot of different varieties of photography available to practice for photographers. Camera techniques, locations, subject matters are important aspects in the photography field.  The Special condition needs property release for the images. Experience and practice perfect individuals in this field. Check out our website for more queries and clarifications.