55k with job security is pretty decent for photography, sadly. I made a little more doing a similar job for an auto parts company, but I was also doing a lot of sales and customer service, running the website and social media, and helping to run the business at the same time.

>>2776604
How do you land a job like this? I'd like to learn retouching, but I get the impression that it's not like earning tech certs; it's a little less discrete than that. Where would I start, both as far as jobs and in learning?

>>2777037
Worked as IT first, but then they started ramping up emails so I ending up helping the design team. Since I was photoshopping since middle school (or around the first CS; making mostly forum signatures and just doing whatever tutorial I saw) I practically knew most of the shortcuts in PS, which led me to a recommendation to photography. Company had a marketing fallout so all inner-working knowledge is retained through me and a few other people, which gave us budgeting oversight and security.
Retouching is learning through videos (fstoppers, torrents) and BTS shoots and lighting diagrams.


My best advice for landing a design job:
Honestly as we hired new designers we just looked at their work. We didn't care if they came from academy of arts or a top tier school as long as their portfolio wasnt fully composed of work from college (easy to tell) and the independent work wasnt cliche we considered them.