Professional Photography

NYI training gives you the skills and confidence to succeed in all areas of photography. What kind of life do you seek as a photographer?

Creative Joy for the Serious Amateur

About half of our students pursue photography strictly as a hobby.

Why do they enroll in our professional photography course? Because they know that to be good at their hobby—to be really good—they need the same thorough training as a pro. A picture is either good or it isn't. The difference between the serious amateur and the successful pro is not the way they take pictures. It's how they use them. Amateurs earn joy and satisfaction, perhaps win prizes or proudly see their pictures exhibited and published. Pros earn money.

NYI gives you the training you need to make your hobby into what it should be—a lifetime source of personal pride and creative satisfaction. But it does more: Many of our students who enroll strictly as hobbyists get excited by money-making ideas in the course. Before long, they too find themselves making money with their cameras, shooting and selling freelance photographs in their spare time.

Extra Money from Freelancing

Want to earn extra money in your spare time too? NYI student Chris Tunney, a fulltime police officer, earns over $500 a week extra freelancing with his camera on weekends and evenings! While not all students do as well, opportunities surround you. And NYI shows you how to find them in your community and trains you to handle them.

NYI student Louis Barton has made over $200,000.00 selling one picture he took for his very first NYI assignment. To help you get started even before you graduate, NYI supplies you with the Freelance Photographer's Handbook that shows you how to contact buyers, how to prepare your portfolio for them, and how to sell to them.

Most importantly, NYI training gives you the ability to produce professional pictures, and the confidence to sell them. You may even decide to freelance full-time. If you dislike routine and love travel, this can be the career for you. Set your own hours. Take time off when you feel like it. Or work hard part of the year and "go fishing" the rest.

A New Career as a Professional

Few accomplishments are more satisfying than building your own business. That's why—after you have been trained in all the important basic and advanced photographic techniques—you also receive complete training in how to start your own studio, how to run a profitable business, how to promote, and what to charge.

In small towns and large, there are opportunities. To get started, you may choose to specialize in portraits; millions are shot every year. Or you could specialize in weddings or child photography. In good times or bad, they're always in demand.

Of course, the "big time" is to get into advertising and commercial photography or to work for a daily newspaper or national magazine. That's the final step. The first step is NYI training.