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CHAPTER 1

Define Your
Niche
SOMEWHERE ALONG LIFE ’S path, somebody put a camera in
your hand and you discovered that you love taking pictures.
You may have been a child playing with an inexpensive
point-and-shoot. Maybe you got caught up in the excitement
of digital photography just a few years ago, capturing
great moments on vacations. Whenever you got hooked, if
you’re reading this book, you’re thinking about developing
a business around selling your photographs. If you can sell
someone a photo, you have communicated with that person.
You have created a story that is compelling enough to cause
others to feel, think, or react—you’ve established a dialogue.
You have communicated so successfully that someone is
willing to give up money for your image. In short, you have
broken into the world of professional photography.

PHOTOS BY (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP CENTER): TAMARA LACKEY; BAMBI CANTRELL;

SCOTT BOURNE; CHASE JARVIS; VINCENT LAFORET; TAMARA LACKEY
 Find Your Passion

Where’s the best place to start? Let’s first figure out your niche. If you’re
going to sell photographs and do something beyond leasing a booth once
a year at the local craft fair, you’ve got to define the various specialties
and where your passion for creating images and starting a new business
best fits. Simply put, you have to define your niche.

Professional photography is divided into
different specialties. For the purposes of
this book, they are: commercial, wedding,
portraiture, nature/wildlife, photojournalism,
fine art, and everything else. The “everything
else” category includes scientific, medical,
architectural, and forensic imagery, just to
name a few.
Each category is further defined with a
series of subgroups. For example, within the
portrait category the subjects include babies,
children, family, high school seniors, boudoir,
business, and pets. Every subject has its own
marketing vehicles, unique demographics,
and in many cases might require different
equipment—a variation of focal lengths in
lenses, for example (a portrait of a baby will
require a different focal length lens than
a scenic landscape will). You will require
different gear for on-location portraiture than
you will for studio work.

Sometimes the most powerful

images are those that comprise
elements that our eyes take
for granted.
LEFT: PHOTO BY EDDIE TAPP
RIGHT: PHOTO BY CHASE JARVIS

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 Your Personality Skill Set and Your Niche

The old expression “to thine own self be true” could not be more important
than when you’re working to define your niche. The big question arises:
Does your personality match the niche in which you want to specialize?

Wedding photographers, for example, you’re doing at any time and picking up
need to be sensitive, be understanding your camera.
of the human spirit, and have excellent Deciding on the niche that best suits
communication skills. They seem to rally your personality, passion, and skill set is
with the stress of helping their clients the first step. From there it’s a short jump
meet the challenges of the wedding day. to marketing, building your brand, and
Remember, they have these qualities in blogging and using other social media tools
addition to their unmatched knowledge of to create awareness for the purposes of
photography. building your business.
On the other hand, a photographer
specializing in nature/wildlife photography
is comfortable being alone and often will
be described as having incredible patience,
willing to sit in the duck blind for hours to
capture that one unique image.
Whatever the niche you’re about to
choose, consider your personality. Think
about what you enjoy photographing
the most. If you like peace, solitude, and
control then you’re more likely to do well
in commercial or nature/wildlife than you
will as a wedding or portrait photographer.
If you like the freedom to simply create
and work by yourself, then fine art might
be a stronger choice. If you’re going to
work to become one of the world’s leading
photojournalists, then you have to be
comfortable being “on call,” just like a
doctor. You have to love spontaneity to
the point of being ready to drop whatever
 Portraiture

Portraiture, along with fine art, is probably the broadest of all the categories,
and encompasses two broad subcategories: studio work and location shooting.

As the name implies, studio portraiture
requires a studio, backdrops, studio lights,
often some props, and an understanding of
lighting and posing techniques. This is typically
a more formal style of portraiture. Location
portraiture allows you to photograph your
subjects in their environment. You have less
control over various aspects of the image, but
by incorporating the environment, you can
add more “personality” to the image and tell
a story. This style is especially popular
for photographing children, who reveal more
of their personalities as they interact with
their toys, pets, and siblings. It’s no different
with adults.

Depth of field plays a strong role in portraiture.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL CORSENTINO

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 Portraiture Specialties

Within the category of portraiture are many subspecialties, from children

to business executives to family pets. With such a wide range of subject
matter, it’s little wonder that portraiture is one of the most lucrative niches
of photography. In fact, capturing images of brides, babies, and pets are the
three most popular reasons people hire a professional photographer. Let’s
take a quick look at the many subcategories.

¤ CH I LDREN’S PHOTOGRAPHY includes babies.

¤ U N DERCLASS PHOTOGRAPHY refers to your basic class photos of kids in school who
are not seniors. This requires high-volume shooting, literally one portrait after another,
usually under contract with a school system.

¤ S E NI OR PHOTOGRAPHY may well be the fastest-growing specialty within professional

portraiture and often the most fun. Senior shoots are often photography events that
resemble fashion shoots, with props and several clothing changes.

¤ FAMILY PORTRAITURE today tends to be casual, revealing more personality.

¤ B R I DAL PORT RAI T U RE is not usually considered to be a separate specialty in the United
States (as it is overseas), but virtually every wedding will require at least one traditional
portrait of the bride by herself and one of the bride and groom together.

¤ B U S I NESS PORT RAI T U RE still often implies a traditional headshot, but there’s been a
long-standing trend to bring the vocation of the subject into the image.

¤ E N VI RONM ENTAL BU SI NESS PORT RAI T U RE involves photographing subjects with a

wider-angle lens and bringing their place of work or a vocation-related component into
the background.

¤ PE T PHOTOGRAPHY is popular and lucrative. People love their pets and consider them
to be members of the family, but there aren’t many photographers who specialize in
pet portraiture.

On-location children’s photography has become big

business, but there’s still nothing like a high-key portrait
such as the one at bottom left.

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 Commercial

Look at the images in Graphis, Adweek, and Communication Arts. If this is

the kind of work you want to do and think you can do, commercial photo-
graphy may be for you. With success in commercial photography, you’ll have
the satisfaction of seeing your work on national television and in major
magazine ads.

You can also reap considerable financial
rewards, since commercial clients usually have
big photography budgets. A few good jobs can
make your year. The rewards of commercial
photography don’t necessarily come easily.
This work is usually assigned by large
advertising agencies, and to get it you have
to have a spectacular portfolio, as well as a
distinct style and usually a specialty. Emerging
Nick Vedros, often taking commercial shooters need to focus on getting
his inspiration from the
cartoonist Gary Larson, their books seen. Competing in national
brings humor into many
contests, showing up on the appropriate
of his images.
PHOTO BY NICK VEDROS forums, and doing lots of networking among
marketing and communication professionals
helps (we’ll show you more ideas in chapter 4 ).
Pricing and bidding are probably more
important in commercial photography than in
just about any other photographic discipline.
You’ll need to be able to explain to clients why
the job costs what it does, and what you’re
going to do with their money to justify their
investment in you. Success in commercial
photography will probably come slower than it
might in wedding photography, but if it’s your
passion, you can get there.

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 Nature / Wildlife

Just think: Who wouldn’t want to get paid to go to national parks and lovely
stretches of wilderness to take photographs? While the call of the wild is
strong, the prospect of making a living as a nature and wildlife photographer is
not. This is a highly competitive category, and for every nature photographer
who succeeds, a thousand others do not.

Many amateurs like to dabble in nature
photography, and this makes it even harder to
succeed. Nature photography is also probably
the lowest paying of all the photographic
specialties, because there is so much compe-
tition. If someone has a picture of Old Faithful
and is willing to license it for less than you
are, you’ll have a hard time convincing the
buyer that your shot is better than his, or than
the million other photos of Old Faithful out
there. Don’t be discouraged, however. Nature
and wildlife photography will always be in
demand. If you want to get paid in sunshine
and are willing to specialize and market
yourself, you can be happy in this category.
To stand out in this crowded field
you need to devote most of your time to
marketing, not to making photographs. Sales
outlets include publishers of books, calendars,
and postcards, producers of fine art nature/
wildlife prints, and stock and advertising
agencies.
Concentrating on a niche is one way to
make money in these markets, and innovators
who find new ways to “productize” their
work will find the most success. Scott Bourne
created a successful stock agency selling his
photographs of birds. For buyers who needed
only bird images, this single source was much
easier to use than stock agencies offering
photographs of thousands of subjects.
Nature photography also provides rare
opportunities to “speak for the animals.”
Wildlife photographers enter the world of
photojournalism as they document the plight
of so many incredible animals whose natural
habitats are being destroyed daily.

I see wildlife photography as a

responsibility and every image as an
opportunity to speak for the animals.
PHOTOS BY SCOTT BOURNE

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