Commercial photography.

Commercial photography is any photography for which the photographer is paid for images rather than works of art. Commercial photography could include:

• Advertising photography is photographs made to illustrate and usually sell a service or product. These images, such as pack-shots, are generally done with an advertising agency, design firm or with an in-house corporate design team.
• Fashion and glamour photography usually includes a model. Photographers here are paid more because of the demand for good photographers to shoot the item being sold and incorporate the model's beauty into the image. Fashion photography like the work featured in Harper's Bazaar emphasizes clothes and other products; glamour emphasizes the model and body form. Glamour photography is popular in advertising and men's magazines which means these pictures are more revealing than editorial fashion photography. Models in glamour photography sometimes work nude.
• Crime scene photography consists of photographing scenes of crime such as robberies and murders. A black and white camera or an infrared camera may be used to capture specific details.
• Still-life photography usually depicts inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made.
• Food photography can be used for editorial, packaging or advertising use. Food photography is similar to still-life photography, but requires some special skills.
• Editorial photography illustrates a story or idea within the context of a magazine. These are usually assigned by a magazine.
• Photojournalism can be considered a subset of editorial photography. Photographs made like this are accepted as a documentation of a news story.
• Portrait and wedding photography are photographs made and sold directly to the end user of the images.
• Landscape photography depicts locations.
• Wildlife photography demonstrates the life of animals.
• Paparazzi.

The market for photographic services demonstrates the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words", which has an interesting basis in the history of photography. Magazines and newspapers, companies putting up Web sites, advertising agencies and other groups pay for photography.

Many people take photographs for self-fulfillment or for commercial purposes. Organizations with a budget and a need for photography have several options: they can employ a photographer directly, organize a public competition, or obtain right to stock photographs. 

Photo stock can be procured through traditional stock giants, such as Getty Images or Corbis; smaller microstock agencies, such as Fotolia; or web marketplaces, such as Cutcaster.