Commercial photography

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Commercial photography is photography made or licensed for the purpose of selling a product, service or idea where fine-art photography is created as an end in itself.

Commercial photography, is also often a collaborative effort of any number of people, from two to two dozen, which may include an account executive, art director, stylist, photographic assistants and other specialists. The exception may be still-life product shots, where the photographer may work independently or with only an assistant.

Most commercial photography is assigned by an advertising agency with the selection of the photographer most often being made by the art director, but it may be done by the creative director, account executive or even at the request of the client. Just because a photograph is commercial does not need to be devoid of art. Many fine-art photographers and editorial photographers have done some of their best work for commercial accounts while often the constraint of representing the product literally has been an obstacle to creativity.

Few professional photographers have been able to ignore the commercial field entirely, and most have counted on the income to be gained from these accounts in a short time, to allow them the free time to exercise their creativity on other projects.