Photography Degree

[Stryda]

I'm considering doing a degree in photography, and was wondering whether through this degree, I could find work within the astronomy business? Such as working with the european space agency etc. Anybody have any views/ advice on this kind of thing?

[ollypenrice]

You need to find some professional astronomers to talk to. There are teams like the Hubble Heritage who do images for general release but it is not what professional astronomers do. For some of their heritage, or public, work they use amateurs. Nik has done this kind of work and so, I think, has Rob Gendler.

To be honest I rather doubt thatthere wouldbe many intros into the professional world this way but I could well be wrong. Contacting professional astronomers would be the way forward but the few I know are retired.

Olly

[Capricorn]

I will start by assuming that you are thinking of the pictures we see of The Orion Nebula, The Crab Nebula etc.

If so then you must be aware that ESA do not have a photographer that takes them. The scopes that get these images are not put in orbit for someone to try a bit of photography with.

Consider the Hubble, or better the Spitzer telescopes. These are pointed at the object, probably at the request of someone doing some research.

If the image is "good" it may then get processed. I guess that much of the processing is performed on behalf of ESA but not by ESA.

I said consider Spitzer because the images are not in the visible so someone has to apply an artistic interpretation. This will be a trial and error approach until the colours and values selected give a good impression. Played with this on an IR image some years ago.

If you are thinking of photographing the internal ESA kit for manuals, user guides, publicity etc then I suppose that ESA will have a section to do that. However they could as easily contract the whole lot out to an external company, the place I work at does it this way.

[richbyers]

I work alongside photography students, and in general photography is a very broad term, though a pure photography degree would not likely get you any career in astronomy

rich

[fatwoul]

I'd go further than Rich and say that a photography degree isn't likely to get you a career in anything at the moment.

I too work with photography students (I'm responsible for looking after the equipment store - cameras, etc), and to be honest, I'd be surprised if most of our students will get anything more than stacking jobs in Asda. That's not a reflection on the students, but simply on the massive number of photography graduates each year - I have a first class hons degree in photography, and this is the closest job I could secure in the field locally! After graduating I worked as a freelancer for 4 years, stuggling to get commissions and fighting to get paid for them.

Partly, this is because everyone in the world who has a camera considers themselves a photographer, so people are always very reluctant to spend money paying a professional photographer for something that they think they can do themselves.

For this reason, only a very small number of graduates each year go on to become professional photographers, and even fewer of them make a really decent living from it.

Add to that the fact that a degree now costs many times what it used to - student debts of 20K+ are commonplace - with fees increasing every year, and you really have to ask yourself if you think you can make a go of it before you even go to university.

I don't mean to sound negative - of course you have to follow your dream - but too many students these days seem to plunge into courses (especially arts courses) expecting wonderful things to happen at the end, and for 90% or more, they get jobs in unrelated fields, that they could have got without the degree, and without racking up huge student loans to pay back.

Returning to your original question, my guess would be that, like our university and most other big institutions either have in house photographers/photography teams, or as Capricorn said, outsource the work out to "general" freelance photographers.

However, most freelance photographers develop a speciality, be it weddings, or interior photography, or whatever. They deviate from those specialities, of course, but over time they become known for what they are best at, and if they are lucky they find themselves a niche to really excel at.

As Capricorn said, if all you're looking for is an involvement with the PR photography within the scientific community, then a firm training in product photography, architectural photography, portraiture, etc would put you in good stead far better than astrophotography itself.

But if you want direct involvement in the big exciting telescopes, then really a degree in something like astrophysics in the path to take. Be advised, however, that I have one of those, too, and they are no better at securing you a job in an astronomy field. Most astrophysics students I graduated with went on to earn vast sums of money working for banks in London!