Types of Photography

Photography is a fascinating and varied art form that lets people capture and share the world in creative ways. It includes many different styles, each with its own focus. There are different types of photography, such as, portrait photography that captures people’s faces and expressions,  landscape photography shows the beauty of nature. Street photography captures everyday life, and event photography records special occasions like weddings. Wildlife photography takes pictures of animals, and macro photography shows tiny details up close.

There are also styles like fashion photography, which shows clothes and accessories, and sports photography, which captures action shots. Architectural photography highlights buildings, aerial photography gives a view from above, photojournalism tells news stories, travel photography shares different places, and black and white photography focuses on contrast and shapes, and many more. Each type helps photographers be creative and tell different stories through their pictures.

There are tons of different types of photography. Here is an extensive list of various kinds that you can master as a niche. Photography is a rising industry that creates stunning photographs across the globe.

60 Different Types of Photography

Abstract

Abstract photography focuses on creating images that use shapes, colors, and textures to evoke emotions and interpretations. This style of photography often relies on creative techniques and perspectives to transform ordinary objects into captivating visual art. The best gear and an imaginative approach are essential to bring these conceptual images to life.

Adventure

Adventure photography captures the excitement and beauty of outdoor activities like hiking, skiing, or rock climbing. It’s all about exploring and showcasing the thrill of these adventures through photos. With the right gear and a sense of adventure, photographers can capture stunning moments in nature that inspire others to get outside and explore.

Advertising

This is all about making products or services look their best in order to attract customers. It involves creating eye-catching images that highlight the features and benefits of what’s being advertised. By using lighting, composition, and styling, advertising photographers aim to capture the attention of potential buyers and persuade them to make a purchase.

Architecture

It involves taking photos that showcase the unique features, shapes, and details of buildings and structures. Using techniques like framing, composition, and lighting, photographers aim to highlight the aesthetic appeal and craftsmanship of buildings, whether they’re modern skyscrapers or historic landmarks.

Astro-Photography

Taking a picture of the night sky, like stars, galaxies, and planets. It involves taking photos of celestial objects using specialized equipment, such as telescopes and cameras. With long exposure times and precise techniques, astro-photographers can create extraordinary images that reveal the beauty and mysteries of the universe.

Black And White

This type of photography is a classic style that uses only shades of gray to create striking images. It focuses on contrast, shapes, and textures rather than colors. By removing color distractions, black and white photography can evoke emotions and highlight the essence of a scene or subject in a timeless way.

Boudoir Photography

A style that celebrates intimacy and sensuality, often shooting subjects in lingerie or other revealing clothing. It’s about empowering individuals to feel confident and beautiful in their own skin. With a focus on creating a comfortable and private atmosphere, boudoir photographers aim to capture images that are both elegant and alluring, showcasing the unique beauty and personality of each person.

Candid Photography

Capturing those spontaneous moments and genuine emotions without posing or staging. It’s all about capturing people in their natural state, whether they’re laughing, talking, or lost in thought. By blending into the background and being observant, candid photographers aim to capture authentic and unguarded moments that tell a story or evoke emotions.

Cityscape Photography

Cityscape photography captures the beauty and liveliness of cities, showcasing their skyline, buildings, and busy streets. By framing the shot thoughtfully and choosing the right moment, cityscape photographers create stunning images that highlight the allure and excitement of city living.

Commercial Photography

Commercial photography is about making images for business purposes, like ads, product promotions, and branding. It’s focused on presenting products, services, or ideas in a way that attracts the intended audience. Commercial photographers collaborate with clients to grasp their objectives and use lighting, composition, and styling to produce images that convey the desired message. Whether shooting products for an online store or lifestyle photos for a marketing effort, commercial photography is vital for promoting companies and brands.

Crystal Ball Photography

Taking pictures through a glass or crystal sphere, which distorts and reflects the scene inside it. This technique adds a mysterious and surreal touch to images, making them captivating and dreamlike. By playing with angles, lighting, and composition, photographers can create beautiful and imaginative photos that intrigue viewers.

Documentary Photography

Documentary photography captures real-life events, people, and places to tell a story or document a moment in history. It uses images to inform and provoke thought about social, cultural, or political issues. Documentary photographers build relationships with their subjects to capture genuine moments. By prioritizing truth and authenticity, this type of photography aims to preserve and communicate important aspects of the human experience.

Drone Photography

Drone photography uses unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to capture images from above, offering a unique perspective of landscapes, cityscapes, and events. Modern drones with high-quality cameras can capture detailed and clear images and videos. This type of photography is popular for its ability to showcase scenes from a new and exciting angle, providing a fresh perspective that ground-based photography cannot achieve.

Editorial Photography

Editorial Photography’s goal is to make the stories more interesting visually. Photographers work closely with writers and editors to match the images with the message of the story. Whether they’re taking portraits, lifestyle shots, or covering events, the aim is to create captivating images that keep the audience interested.

Event Photography

Taking pictures during special occasions like wedding, parties, and conferences. Event Photographers capture emotions, key moments, and people at the event. They use their skills to take candid shots, group pictures, and details that help remember the event. Timing and composition play a big role in creating images that reflect the atmosphere and excitement of the occasion.

Family Photography

Family photography is about taking pictures of families during special occasions or everyday moments at home. Photographers capture portraits and candid shots that show how family members interact with each other. They aim to create images that hold special memories and emotions, helping families remember happy times for a long time.

Fashion Photography

Fashion photography is about taking pictures to make clothes and accessories look good. Photographers work with models, clothes designers, and makeup artists to create images that show a specific style or mood. They pay attention to things like lighting and poses to make the pictures stand out and catch people’s eyes. Fashion photos are important for advertising and magazines because they shape how people see fashion and what they want to buy.

Fine Art Photography

This type of photography is all about being artistic and creative rather than showing things just as they are. It’s about making pictures that make you feel something, think about things, or understand a message. Photographers use different techniques to create unique and beautiful images. These photos are usually seen in galleries, museums, or private collections as pieces of art. Fine art photos make people think and feel more deeply, going beyond just showing what things look like.

Fish Eye Photography

This photography uses a special lens called a fish-eye lens, which shows a wide, distorted view of the surroundings. It makes pictures look curved and with a cool, round effect. This type of photography is great for making bold and interesting images, especially for buildings, nature scenes, and artistic shots. The distorted perspective gives the photos a unique and dreamy look, making them stand out and stay in your memory.

Food Photography

Food photography’s goal is to make food appear tasty and appealing, creating images that make people want to eat what they see. Photographers use different methods to enhance the look of food and make it tempting. They pay attention to things like lighting, layout, and presentation to bring out the taste and texture of the dishes. Food photography is essential for things like cookbooks, menus, ads, and social media, as it helps attract customers and highlights the skills of chefs and food stylists.

Forced Perspective Photography

Forced perspective photography is a cool trick that uses the way things look to create surprising illusions. It makes objects seem much bigger or smaller than they really are by placing them in certain positions. By playing with distance, angle, and size, forced perspective photography makes awesome and sometimes funny images. It’s often used in fun or surreal pictures where things are not as they seem, making viewers do a double-take and sparking their imagination.

Glamour Photography

A photography that captures the beauty and confidence of the person in the photos. It involves creating stylish and elegant images that highlight the glamour and charm of the subject. Photographers use lighting, poses, and editing to make the subject look their best and create stunning images. Glamour photography is used in fashion magazines, ads, and personal portfolios to celebrate the beauty and sophistication of the person being photographed.

Golden Hour Photography

When the sun is low in the sky, right after sunrise or before sunset, giving a warm, golden light. This time creates a beautiful and enchanting atmosphere, perfect for outdoor photos. Photographers love using this time to capture landscapes, portraits, and more because the golden light adds a special glow and depth to the pictures. With its gentle shadows and vibrant colors, golden hour photography makes scenes look magical and dreamy, enhancing their beauty.

Headshot Photography

Headshot photography is about taking pictures of people’s faces for things like work profiles and social media. Photographers work with people to show their personality and professionalism. They use lighting and poses to make flattering and engaging photos. Headshots are important for making a good impression and showing people in a positive light.

High Dynamic Range HDR

HDR or High Dynamic range photography works to create a high-resolution image. Often eight or more images are stitched together to get the final result. HDR photography is used when there is a big difference between the bright and dark parts of a picture, like in landscapes with a bright sky and dark shadows. This technique combines different exposures to make detailed and colorful photos that look more like what we see with our eyes.

Indoor Photography

Indoor photography is about taking pictures inside buildings or homes. Because there might not be as much natural light, photographers use artificial light sources to make the photos look good. They set up the lights, organize the scene, and adjust the camera settings to create nice pictures. Indoor photography lets photographers be creative, whether they’re capturing everyday moments or portraits. With the right skills and tools, photographers can take interesting photos that tell stories and bring out emotions, even indoors.

Infrared Photography

Infrared photography is when you take pictures using a special kind of light that we can’t see. It makes things look really different, like turning trees bright white and darkening the sky. You need special cameras or filters to do it, and the pictures often look kind of magical and surreal.

Kinetic Photography

The style of photography captures motion or movement. It is done my camera movement instead of the subject. Exciting images are obtained from the photography.

Landscape Photography

The type of photography that capture pictures of nature, like mountains, forests, or the beach. It’s about capturing the beauty of the outdoors and sharing it with others. People use cameras to take these pictures, and they often look really pretty!

Lifestyle

The genre focuses on achieving a real-life situation. It shares stories that are derived from blatant setup. But it captures a part of daily activity, just like having a coffee cup on the table.

Long Exposure

Long exposure photography is about capturing scenes with long shutter speed. It helps to frame the stationary object while you blur or obscure the moving element. The photographic style can be used both day and night.

Macro

This type of photography deals with shooting small objects from close range. Special lenses and equipment are used for the purpose. A whole new dimension is added when a smaller world is focused on making significant.

Milky Way

It is a style of photography that captures the Milky Way. The camera must have excellent low light photography ability and can capture high resolution in such a condition.

Minimalist

The minimalist photography helps to capture a scene that has the least visual element. The style plays with color, texture, line, or form.

Mobile

Mobile photography captures images or frames with the help of a mobile phone. The phone is versatile to capture models or even macro subjects.

Multiple Exposure

Multiple exposure photography works with photography layer images in-camera. Two images are sewn into one picture, which is full to the brim with the details.

New-born Photography

This style of photography works to capture new-born babies. Sometimes the image is captured with mother or father. Safety is one of the critical elements of photography.

Night Photography

Night photography is a style that captures images at night time. Various camera settings, technical aspects, and gears are used to capture the low light situation. The environment changes at night, and it is occupied by the photographer.

Panorama Photography

Panorama photography captures and shows a large field of view of the scenery. A mobile phone can be used to record panorama, or many images can be stitched together to create the same effect.

Pet Photography

This style of photography is the act of capturing your pets. Any pets like cats, dogs, or birds are subject to photography. They are captured in various actions or moods.

Photo Manipulation

Photo Manipulation style depends much on photo editing software. Photographers tend to take the shots and later work with the shot on photo editing systems like Adobe Photoshop.

Photo Journalism

Photojournalism communicates news using real-life images. The photos from this genre are used for magazines, newspapers, or editorial platforms. The images include still life, candid, war, and documentary style of photography.

Portrait Photography

Portrait photography deals with taking pictures of people. Physical expression and features are a good part of the program. Even self-portrait or silhouettes are involved in this type of platform. People and their portraits are used to show the diversity and tell stories.

Prism Photography

The style is very similar to crystal ball photographs. A prism-shaped glass-based element is utilized to capture photography. A textured side of the image with distorting areas is captured, which turns a dull image into an interesting one.

Product Photography

The style comes from a branch of commercial photography. The objects or models are captured for advertisement purposes. Product photography comes up in brochure, catalog, or as online entities. Products can be anything that is marketed for the purpose.

Real Estate Photography

Real estate photography is all about capturing properties which are used for selling or commercial purpose. There is a vast use of interior lighting, which can be done only inside the house. A wide-angle lens is an integral part of this style for capturing the entire property.

Scientific Photography

This style of photography does not fall under a creative field. Instead, it is strictly used for record management purposes. It helps to keep a record of new findings in the process. Complicated equipment helps to capture a photo at the most macro level possible.

Sea Scape Photography

Seascape or ocean photography is all about capturing the sea landscape. Coastal photography is a style that is similar to the genre. Islands, rock formation, etc. are captured in the style of photography.

Social Media Photography

Social media photography works to share the image for social media photography. Images can be anything from still life, fashion, or some other style of paintings.

Sports Photography

Sports photography captures moments, emotions, and events from all types of sports. Various sports need various types of gear, lenses, settings, and approaches. The genre works with action, motion, and emotions through the frames.

Still-life Photography

 Still, life photography works to capture inanimate objects to create a scenario. Any inanimate objects fall under this category. The creativity highly relies on the photographer to bring out a new frame.

Stock Photography

In this style, the photographer captures the image for the websites and sell them. The high demand for photos has brought up this fast-growing style. It includes anything from portrait, wedding, landscape, candid, etc.

Street Photography

Street photography is done from the streets. Daily life, motion, lifestyle is captured using Street photography. It can include portraiture, architecture, or candid images that are acquired from the street.

Tilt-Shift Photography

Large format cameras are utilized to do tilt-shift photography. Miniature models are brought to life with the planes being independent. It helps to remove any parallax errors of the buildings. The genre itself is in a very creative aspect.

Time-lapse Photography

Time-lapse photography works with capturing the succession of the images within the scene. The photographer aims to capture and show the fluctuation or movement. For example, the moon movement is achieved using Time-lapse photography.

Travel Photography

Travel photography helps to document any area or location. It helps to capture the people, architecture, portrait, and landscape, and night time. Travel photography is currently used for the travel destination and sharing information about them.

Urban Exploration Photography

Urban exploration is an exciting genre where abandoned places are being photographed. It includes architecture as well as the interior of the buildings. The other name of this genre is Urbex photography. The genre emerged as a popular style among the urban explorers who explored these abandoned places. However, there is a danger associated with this genre.

War Photography

War photography captures the vicious results of war. It involves framing the conflict, effects on the places, and people. It even captures the emotion in the form of a photo documentary. The style is often followed by Journalists. Final images are commonly used for sharing the stories of war.

Wedding Photography

Wedding photography works to capture all the events associated with a wedding. It works with portraits, family, use of drones, and even candid photos. Few photographers try to create wedding documentaries as they capture the event as a mark of a document.

Wildlife Photography

One of the most renowned genre where Photographers capture animals in their natural habits. Various equipment like camo, telephoto lens, and high-speed cameras are needed to become successful in the wildlife genre.