PHOTOGRAPHY IN MYANMAR

As an advertising and marketing agency, photography is a huge part of what we do at MultiVerse. Nearly every kind of project we complete requires us to take photos, whether it be of products themselves, places and destinations, or sometimes even real-life, physical locations for design mockups or inspiration. One especially talented photographer on our team is Neo, his work has been featured on many of our projects and social media posts, but you can also view some of his personal work here: https://www.behance.net/zinmineo50ed.

In Myanmar, photography as an artform is also beginning to take off as average Myanmar people have wider access to high-end cameras and smartphones, as well as photo sharing services like Facebook and Instagram. Here’s a brief summary of the different kinds of photography, as well as some exciting ways people are sharing what they see in Myanmar.

Types of Photography

In general, it is thought there are three kinds of photography; commercial photography, advertising photography, and personal photography. Commercial photographers are generally hired by retail or wholesale businesses to benefit the sale of products or introduce promotions. They take photos of merchandise, buildings or models among other things, which are later used to display a product or service. In practice, this means that commercial photo shoots are completely dedicated to accurately capturing the way a product looks, and the artistic styling of the shoot is often kept to a minimum.

Of course, advertising photography is what we do at our agency — though we often shoot the same subjects as commercial photographers, we like to think that our images tell a story. More often than not, we’re trying to convey a lifestyle, brand story, elevated concept or idea to people that view photographs in marketing and advertising materials. This mission gives us greater creative freedom, and it’s why some of the world’s best photographers do advertising work. More often than not, good advertising photographers are also familiar with much of the rest of the advertising industry. Many have worked at agencies or internal marketing operations themselves, so they know industry terms, trends and management styles.

Last but not least, personal photography involves regular people taking photos with equipment ranging from simple point-and-shoot cameras to advanced smartphones, or even expensive personal cameras and other photography equipment. It’s a growing hobby-based artform, and with social media, sharing snaps has been made even easier and more rewarding. Many techniques and motifs that personal photographers pioneered also make their way into commercial and advertising photography by the way of trends. One that immediately comes to mind was the popularization of square-cropped photos after Instagram first took off.

In Myanmar

In Myanmar, both tourists and locals alike are taking advantage of the country’s beautiful food, people and destinations to capture their own photo masterpieces. As smartphone usage has risen, non-professional Myanmar photographers are able to share their activities with friends across social media, though the most popular in the country is Facebook. Estimates peg the number of Facebook users in Myanmar at somewhere around 14 million, more than a quarter of the population.

On Instagram, the hashtags of some of Myanmar’s most popular destinations like #Yangon, #InleLake and #Bagan, have been posted more than 530,000, 130,000, and 400,000 times respectively. Countless others posts can be found through location tagging. In fact, photography has become so prominent at many of Myanmar’s most popular tourist spots that this year the Archaeological Department set a 100,000 Kyat fee for commercial photographers to shoot in Bagan. But if you were planning to visit one of Myanmar’s most important historic sites, don’t be alarmed — fees have not changed for tourists and using personal cameras or smartphones is certainly allowed, and even encouraged.