
Becoming a Photopreneur : Finding Your Specialty / by David Bickley
posted on 7 November 2014Then the remaining 19% are generally geared towards the commercial market, but with a similar sparse focus.
Oh, the 1%? They’re the ones that come in and say “I’m going to shoot X, and nothing but X.” It doesn’t happen in my office very often.
The point I’m making here is that a massive portion of photographers seem to feel as if they should shoot any and every genre of work where they can make a saleable image. You can’t really fault the thought process. We think that if we can take a little piece of all the pies that we will have more than if we snag a huge chunk of one. There is a flaw in this common stance.
To make the most you can of your career, you have to specialize, and in many cases hyper-specialize.
Think about it like this. Not too many years ago there was ONE guy you went to for hyper-realistic, almost illustrated images. Who was it? What about the fashion photographer always hired for his for incredibly polished and vivid fashion work? Who is currently the go to name for headshots?
In order:
Dave Hill
Mario Testino
Peter Hurley
Maybe you had different names in mind for each question, the point is still the same. You know them because of how well defined in their niche they are. You don’t get there by doing a little bit of everything. You get there by being THE name people think of when it comes to the type of image they want. Is that to say that you can’t shoot anything else? Absolutely not, just that you don’t focus on, or market those things. Step one in getting ahead in this area is clearly defining your niche. What specifically are you providing your clients? What area of specialty?
This can be a very difficult thing to pin down. We are creatives and as such don’t generally like to be pidgeon holed. However, I encourage you to look closely at your style and the things about what you do that you are truly passionate about. How do your personal beliefs and views fall in line with these?
I’ll use myself as an example. My calling card is ……..
To finish this article please go here : https://fstoppers.com/business/becoming-photopreneur-finding-your-specialty-39339
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