Photography

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part of Creative Production · tier 1 · 0 pieces of work carry it · 5 crafts it is confused with

The craft, and who hires it

Brands commission photography to build campaign stills, e-commerce and catalog imagery, brand image libraries, lookbooks, event and PR coverage, and social content — any moment a brand needs owned, camera-captured still imagery rather than illustration, CGI, or film.

The still-image craft discipline: work captured with a camera as a photograph, spanning the seven leaf specializations (Lifestyle, Editorial, Event, Conceptual, Product, Still Life, Architectural Photography). The discipline names WHO made it — a photographer — regardless of where the image is published or what content type carries it.

Tag it when…

Tag when the item is (or is dominated by) a camera-captured still photograph. Use this L1 tag ALONE when the item is clearly photographic but no leaf fits confidently — discipline-known/leaf-unknown is a legal, honest tag (CM1); never force a leaf or invent one.

Never tag it when…

Never tag drawn or painted imagery (that goes to Illustration under Design). Never tag CGI/3D renders that merely LOOK photographic — photoreal is an execution look, not a camera; those go to 3D Product Renders / 3D Design under Design. Never tag moving footage (that goes to Cinematography under Video Production). Retouch-only work on someone else's photograph goes to Retouching under Post-Production. Content-type vocabulary never decides: a case study, social post, or press article tags by the craft of its stills, not by its format label.

Easily mistaken for 5 other crafts

Every other page suggests neighbours by similarity. This one navigates by difference: each line names the craft this is confused with, and the rule for telling them apart.

• Cinematography (Video Production) — Moving footage = cinematography; a still frame extracted from film is still cinematography by craft. Photography is stills captured AS stills.
• 3D Product Renders (Design) — If the 'photo' was rendered in CGI it is never photography, however photoreal the look — photoreal is a look (visual_style/material axis), the craft is 3D and lives under Design.
• Illustration (Design) — Drawn/painted imagery is Illustration; 'looks photographic' vs 'is a photograph' is the test — camera capture decides.
• Retouching (Post Production) — Heavy post work on a photograph adds a Retouching credit; it does not replace the Photography tag when the underlying capture is photographic.
• Graphic Design (Design) — A photograph composited into a designed layout (key art, poster, page hero) keeps Photography for the capture; the layout/composite craft is Design — tag both, each at its own grain.

At what size it applies

Asset tag when, to a buyer, the whole piece IS a photograph (typical for image-format items). Moment tag when a still-photography beat you'd clip and reference sits inside a larger work — a photo montage inside a film, or a photography-carried section of a web page — the parent asset keeps its own craft.

The 7 crafts inside it

• Architectural Photography — 1 pieces
• Conceptual Photography — 0 pieces
• Editorial Photography — 277 pieces
• Event Photography — 839 pieces
• Lifestyle Photography — 2 pieces
• Product Photography — 356 pieces
• Still Life Photography — 0 pieces

Where to look next

• The whole services tree — the services index.
• Every other vocabulary — the vocabulary index.
• How work gets credited to a craft — the entities chapter.