Different Types of Photography – 25 Types & Styles

There are many types and Genres of Photography. People tend to specialize or lean towards one or two types for many reasons. Even within the dozens of categories, there are even more subcategories. This article is about the 25 most popular types, some sample photos for each type, and finally some related links from our site.

You may prefer watching the three videos below, they summarize the rest of the post. If not, and you prefer to continue reading, just skip the videos.

Landscape photography

This is one of the most popular types of photography, Shooting photographs of natural environments, known most commonly as landscape photography, is one of the most popular and fun ways to get started in the art of taking pictures. The Wikipedia site defined the landscape photography as capturing the presence of nature but it can also focus on man-made features or disturbances of landscapes. While it may seem simple to snap a couple of photos of a mountain or a hillside, it can be a bit more complicated than point and shoot.

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Portrait photography

Capturing peoples’ moods and expressions is an intriguing subject for photographers. They can be close-up images, body portraits etc. Typically the face is the focus of this type of photography. While taking a portrait, the photographer should ensure that the subject’s face is sharp and focused, especially his or her eyes. The subject’s pose should also be flattering, and try to capture a person’s natural expressions.

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Wildlife photography

Wildlife photography is a genre of photography concerned with documenting various forms of wildlife in their natural habitat. It is one of the more challenging forms of photography. Wildlife photographers generally need good field craft skills. For example, some animals are difficult to approach and thus knowledge of the animal’s behavior is needed in order to be able to predict its actions.

Fashion Photography

Fashion photography is a genre of photography which is devoted to displaying clothing and other fashion items. Fashion photography is most often conducted for advertisements or fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, or Elle.

Related Links:

If you are interested in the fashion business or want to be a fashion model or a commercial model here is a useful link modeling agency in USA

Nature Photography

Nature Photography doesn’t involve only plants or trees; it involves the natural scenery as seen through the photographer’s eyes. It can be landscapes, hills, waterfalls, wildlife or anything that can be captured outdoors.

Architectural photography

The architectural photography has an almost endless range of possibilities, there are chances to capture some of the world’s most significant monuments at one end, whilst at the other end of the scale, and there are chances to capture someone’s humble home or living space. Shooting old and historical buildings is an interesting part of the architectural photography, also the interior of the building is another wonderful part of architectural photography; they can offer you a big chance to capture some amazing photos.

Sports Photography

Sports photography refers to the genre of photography that covers all types of sports. In the majority of cases, professional sports photography is a branch of photojournalism. The main application of professional sports photography is for editorial purposes; dedicated sports photographers usually work for newspapers, major wire agencies, or dedicated sports magazines. However, sports photography is also used for advertising purposes both to build a brand and as well as to promote a sport in a way that cannot be accomplished by editorial means.

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Night photography

Night photography refers to photographs taken outdoors between dusk and dawn. You don’t need to travel a lot to search for exotic places to take photos, you can still get stunning photographs of some subjects, places, building, city streets etc., they look ordinary and may be boring at daylight, but they turn into fantastic scenes at night. Night photographers generally have a choice between using artificial light and using a long exposure, exposing the scene for seconds, minutes, and even hours in order to give the digital sensor enough time to capture the suitable amount of light.

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Wedding photography

Wedding photography is the photography of activities relating to weddings. It encompasses photographs of the couple before marriage (for announcements, portrait displays, or thank you cards) as well as coverage of the wedding and reception. A decent wedding retains the most ravishing memories in one’s lifetime. Everyone envisions that their wedding day will be astonishing, the cake, the music, the flowers, the guest, the venue but what makes these memories live forever is the artistic photographs.

Macro photography

Macro photography is extreme close-up photography, usually of very small subjects and living organisms like insects, flowers, Jewelry, even a water droplet in which the size of the subject in the photograph is fully filled the photo frame. Macro photography brings out the minute details of the chosen subject. Things that is not normally visible to the human eyes looks amazing in macro photography.

Baby photography

Every parent wants to document their child’s birth, right from the birth room till they grow up. It’s a great way to preserve memories and it’s a fun way of gifting your little one when they grow up into adults.

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Waterfall photography

One of the popular subjects in landscape photography is waterfalls. Waterfalls seem to catch the heart, mind, and attractions of most people. Shooting waterfalls photos involve problems and challenges for most photographers, but the outcome is really rewarding.

Candid photography

It is about Anticipating and catching the decisive moments. Watch people’s behavior and body language. Anticipate actions and moments before they happen. Follow human interactions, watch people. Wait for a moment to happen, rather than searching for it. Try to be invisible. It only a split of a second to capture your subject before it’s gone forever. You rarely get a second chance, so always be prepared and wait for it to happen, and be clever enough to even anticipate its happening.

Birds Photography

Bird photography, especially wild bird photography can be quite challenging. If you like taking photos of birds, you should know how to approach and deal with them closely.

Fireworks photography

Fireworks are a tricky subject to photograph–you’re shooting in the dark, your subject keeps moving and disappearing, and it’s hard to get a good location.

Astrophotography

Astrophotography is a fancy term for photography of astronomical objects (planets, stars, nebulae, galaxies, etc.). Those incredible pictures you’ve seen of the Milky Way or the rings of Saturn, that’s astrophotography.

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Documentary photography

Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. Manual pictures that form a photo story come under this style. It is about a particular subject or a story that a photographer wants to highlight. They are all objective pictures and can be about a war, social issues, science and so on.

Aerial photography

When you are on a plane and take a photo of the landscape or city scene below, those images are captured from above is known as aerial photography. French photographer and balloonist, Gaspar Felix, took the first aerial photograph in 1858 from a balloon.

Street photography

Many years ago, Street photography was most commonly referred to as photography of subjects/people within (public) cityscapes in a manner reminiscent of documentary photography. Nowadays the street photography has moved solely toward photographing people in situations and emphasizes the foreign or the funny situation and subjects.

Urban photography

Urban photography is about taking photos of people, objects, and cityscapes. Cities provide a varied and fascinating photography subject. Urban photography is a way to examines objects, subjects, and landscapes and how they are connected to each other.

Underwater photography

“Underwater photography is the process of taking photographs while under water. It is usually done while scuba diving but can be done while diving on surface supply, snorkeling, swimming, from a submersible or remotely operated underwater vehicle, or from automated cameras lowered from the surface”. Underwater photography

Food photography

Food photography is a still life photography genre used to create attractive still life photographs of food. This type of photography is used by restaurants, websites or bloggers to entice customers to try and sell their products.

Travel photography

Travel photography is a genre of photography that may involve the documentation of an area’s landscape, people, cultures, customs, and history

War photography

Capturing images of conflicts in war-torn areas fall under this genre. War photographers usually put their lives in danger to cover the event. War photography can even document the aftermath of war.

Nude photography

Nude photography is the creation of any photograph which contains an image of a nude or semi-nude person, or an image suggestive of nudity.

2.6 Abstract Photography

It is shooting a subject (could be an object we use in our daily life) and directing the viewer to look at it in a different way. This may cause the subject to lose its original meaning or purpose. It may even render the subject unreal, abnormal and not of this world. The subject could lose all literal meaning and be reduced to only shape, light, texture or color. The photos are created entirely for the purpose of art.

Thanks for reading the article, hope you enjoy it and found it useful to you. If you have any question, drop it down in the box below and I’ll answer it as soon as possible.

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4 Comments

Yinka Alabi says:

October 24, 2018 at 2:49 PM

I really enjoyed browsing your website. I love photography myself and am always looking to better my skills in photographing my collection of reptiles

- Amin Hashem says:
  
  October 26, 2018 at 10:10 AM
  
  Glad you like the site and hope to see you again.
  
Wayne says:

July 9, 2017 at 4:05 PM

Hi Ehab

I really enjoyed browsing your website. I love photography myself and am always looking to better my skills in photographing my collection of reptiles.

Your website is so captivating and colorful, I found myself reading the entire page and clicking into the links you provided with tips and advice on taking better photographs for just about every situation.

Did you take most of these photos, they are incredible. My favorite would have to be the Macro shot of the Bee.

Thanks for sharing your website and for providing all this valuable information. I have bookmarked your site and will return whenever I need advice on taking a better photo.

Thanks again Ehab…

Wayne

- Amin Hashem says:
  
  July 9, 2017 at 6:02 PM
  
  Hi Wayne
  
  I appreciated very much your worm comment, Of course not all the photos are mine, otherwise, I’m having a room full of different types of lenses. As you know fellow photographer, each type of photography need its special lens ( for example: Underwater, Maco, aerial, and Astrophotography.etc)
  
  The main idea of the article is to provide the reader with a brief of the various types of photography and show them some sample photos.
  
  Thank you again, hope to see you again and wishing you all the best.

Different Types of Photography – 25 Types & Styles You Need to Know

Landscape photography

Portrait photography

Wildlife photography