Is this "Lifestyle" photography?

<p>Hello. I am building my business website and want to make sure I'm using the most effective (and accurate) language to describe my work. One of my niches is youth photography, with an emphasis on candids in an educational sphere. For example, I shot K-12 kids for several local charter schools. These were spontaneous shots in natural light <img src="C:\Photos\Website%20Candidates\Students\2000%20srgb\_A043459.jpg" alt="" />obtained during class and oftentimes included the teachers. The client will be using them for marketing purposes (website, social media, etc). <br>

My question is, how should this type of photography be characterized? Is it "Lifestyle", "Environmental Portraiture", "Candids", "Editorial", other?<br>

Thank you,<br>

Andrew</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I'm going to vote "environmental portrait" because the main subject (teacher) is in her place of work, her environment. It might also be classified as a type of candid portrait.</p>

<p>BTW ... did you have any difficulty obtaining model releases since this is intended for commercial/marketing purposes? </p>

Definitions of LIFESTYLE PHOTOGRAPHY

 

Lifestyle photography is a kind of photography which mainly aims to capture portrait/people in situations, real-life events or milestones in

an artistic manner and the art of the everyday. The primary goal is to tell stories about people's life or to inspire people in different times.

Thus, it covers multidisciplinary types of photography together. A lifestyle photographer is not only a portrait or people photographer and

loves/enjoys photography as art in everyday life but is believed to be talented in photography that can also do well in other many

disciplines of photography at a time such as landscape, street photography, fashion, wedding and even wildlife with one's unique vision to

inspire people's life.

 

True lifestyle photography is about shooting people in everyday situations, in a candid and unobtrusive way. Any images that you take

that are of natural moments could be considered lifestyle photography, but it’s the emotion, mood or the importance of the moment you’re

capturing, that makes the difference between a great photograph and a simple snapshot.

 

One responder asked about model releases, suggesting that obtaining them was the photographer's responsibility. In fact, the legal

responsibility is on the shoulders of the one who actually makes a commercial/marketing photo public. As a practical matter most clients

will not accept photos unless the photographer supplies releases. This is a matter of convenience, not a legal obligation of the

photographer; it is a best business practice.

 

For schools in particular, it is common for a general photo release covering all situations to be part of each year's "day one" package of

forms that parents are asked to sign. If a parent does not sign, the child's photo will not be used. Sometimes, a specific form is sent to

parents for each event. In the case of schools, it is easier and more practical for the school to obtain releases than for the photographer

to obtain them.

<p>Your example photo does not look at all like "spontaneous shots in natural light." Maybe you got really lucky, but it looks like a carefully posed, carefully lit workplace stock photo of a teacher at work, the kind of thing you would find on Shutterstock or from similar microstock agencies. I would look for similar photos on those sites and see what they call them. It's too nicely lit to look like editorial -- it's a little too perfect to look editorial or candidate or spontaneous. You could call it workplace stock photography or advertising, since it was shot to advertise/market the school and looks more like a shot from an ad than from a newspaper story.<br /><br />If it wasn't so much too-perfect, you could call it editorial/environmental/public relations. But editorial/environmental is usually a little rougher. News photographers don't usually have the time to get the light just right or the posing/expressions just right. <br /><br />I find "lifestyle" to be a totally meaningless term. When I worked for newspapers, that was the title used for the fluffy feature section that had everything from home gardening tips and the comic pages to restaurant reviews. It meant nothing,</p>

<p>Thanks, everyone. BTW- that image was chopped off a bit on the right. I guess I uploaded an image that was a bit too large.<br>

David- Benoit's response is on-point regarding releases. All of the schools I worked with last year included general photo releases in the package of information all students received at the beginning of the year. And indeed, in a couple of instances, specific students intentionally did not sign the releases, so I was instructed to exclude them during the shoots.<br>

Craig - Your feedback is interesting. I didn't realize that editorial work is typically "rougher" (imperfect) in terms of lighting. From a marketing standpoint, I'm not really crazy about "lifestyle" or "environmental" as descriptors. Regarding the latter, literally every time I've used the term people immediately assume I do conservation photography or photography connected to environmental protection which isn't the case. And "lifestyle" doesn't quite feel right for this type of work either, though perhaps some clients would search on this term when looking for a photographer. <br>

</p>

I shoot for a number of international schools. I don't really care what it's called, I just make sure I complete the brief and that the communications manager is happy. I generally refer to it as "school photography" but use the heading "education".

Who is the client the school or a 3rd party?

 

"All of the schools I worked with last year included general photo releases in the package of information all students received at the beginning of the year"

 

what this means is to be used internally for the school's promotion, fundraising and to reach out to the community. If your client is the school then you should be fine. Otherwise, you can't use any of those images for any client outside of the school unless you have model releases from the parents and property release from the schools. The only way you could use it is for editorial licensing and even then, since those schools are your client, out of courtesy is a good idea to share your plans with the school director/assistant etc