I had always had an interest in photography in high school, but my major in college was music business. I was dealing with a bunch of different bands, and they were always needing pictures for websites, album covers, stickers... whatever! I always had a decent camera, so I would do all the pictures they needed. I even have a few prints of some of the stuff I did in high school!
But when I dropped out of college, I needed a way to support myself. I had a few dead end gigs here and there, but I answered an ad for Lifetouch, thinking it would be school portraits. It was a sales position with the church directory division. I got the job, and traveled all over Illinois with them. Then I moved to Northern IL to work with another band, and got a job with PCA International's church directory division. Originally I was going to do the sales, but they had some photographers quit, so I offered to do that until they hired some others, then go back to sales. Well, I was one of the top photographers in the territory during that time, so they weren't about to send me back to sales! I got TONS of experience; I was photographing over 20 sittings a day, 5 days a week! Then I would come home on Saturday nights and photograph the bands.
Once gas prices got outrageous (that wasn't anything compared to what they are now!) I just couldn't keep traveling all over the midwest, so I packed up and moved back home. I got a job with a retail studio that will remain nameless (let's just say they're owned by one of the companies I mentioned before), and was the highest selling photographer for a good 6 mos before I got sick of their spotty business practices. So I quit and opened my studio about a year later. I did weddings off and on through out my church directory days, too.
Anyway, my advice is to find a place that will get you as much experience in the specialization you want to go with. I never went to school for photography, but I've looked into it a few times. The problem is, I really don't want to pay money for someone to teach me something I could easily learn on my own. When I think about the money I wasted going to college... oh the equipment I would have!! I'm all for higher education, but if you're going to go to college for this, go to a school that is strictly for photography!
