Hi All,
Thank you all for the well supported replies. It's been a huge help to read.
I think I should first outline my goals. Currently I'm a student at a community college here in Sacramento, CA hoping to transfer to either Cal Poly SLO, CSU Long Beach, or BIOLA by Fall 2010. I will be transferring as an undergraduate in both Art - Concentration in Photography and Business - Emphasis in Marketing. There are many names for these majors depending on the school, but my ultimate educational goal is to have a degree in photography and marketing. Formal training with business sense behind it.
Photographically I do most of my business in the portrait wedding field but also have begun to break into promotional and advertising work which is where I think I would like to go. To sum it up into a career, I would love to photograph ad campaigns, fashion spreads or editorial portraits. For now I shoot what I love, paid or not and make my bread and butter from portraits and weddings. I enjoy both and could see myself doing either but prefer the advertising. I originally wanted to go into photo journalism but the field, along with the economy and state of newspapers are too competitive for my character. That said, I have taken an internship for which I leave in about a week, spending 3 months in South Africa working as a photojournalist, public relations and aid worker for an NGO VoxUnited (
www.voxunited.org) I thought I should take this opportunity mainly because of my love for helping others and the obvious photographic experience involved.
Sorry this is so much but it seems like I should put as much of myself out there as possible to get the best help.
Ken and Alain
Hopefully this can help with your advice.
The sampling, are they any other organizations besides PPA and WPPI that offer a good sampling program for students maybe more specific to the commercial, advertising, fashion world?
Kathy,
Thank you for your thoughts on two of the most popular organizations. It's nice to see it from a legal perspective, though at this time I don't think I'm enough of a photographer to get involved in the politics of photography.
Best
Jerome