Category: Business

Most photographers start out as “generalists”, i.e. taking pictures of a wide range of subjects. I think there is nothing wrong with it, in principle, but most experts agree that from a business standpoint, it is good to choose niche and specialize in it. Actually, this is true for any business, not just photography.

Finding a niche is important because there is only so much time in a single lifetime, and developing the skills specific to a certain genre is a long process. In fact, one can argue that development of a skill is an endless journey. Unfortunately, skills and expertise often do not cross over between different niches. For example, the techniques, the equipment and the entire approach that are required for macro photography are completely different from those used in sports or fashion niches.

There is also a question of marketing. It is easier to promote a portfolio if it is focussed on a single topic.

Having said this, I personally find that focussing on a single niche to the exclusion of all other types of photography would be a sure way to kill the enthusiasm that made me pick up the camera to begin with. Thinking more philosophically, perhaps there is a certain contradiction between “focus” and “balance” in a general sense. If you intensely focus only on one aspect of your life, other areas inevitably suffer.

In kendo, which I believe is a metaphor for everything else in life, there is a concept of tokui waza – a special, favourite technique, which has the highest probability of success. Tokui waza is specific to a particular kendoka, who strive to identify what their best technique is and then focus their practice on polishing this special skill. However, this specialization cannot be done at the expense of other techniques. Otherwise, the range of available skills/techniques would become so narrow, that an experienced opponent would be able to exploit it as a weakness.

I think the answer is in the degree of focussing. Ideally, I would like to specialize in a given area just enough, so that the result would be legitimate expertise without unwanted side effects. Paraphrasing the term popularized by Tim Ferriss, it is the minimum effective dose (MED) of focussing – the smallest amount of focus that would produce the desired outcome, beyond which, focussing is ineffective or even harmful.

If we agree that specializing, to some extent, is beneficial, choosing a niche in photography is not trivial (as I mentioned, most of us start as generalists), so I will leave this subject until another post.

In preparation for the photo shoot for an advertisement campaign of a local dance school, I set up a shared Pinterest board, where the director of the school, my wife  and I pinned photographs with ideas on the poses, lighting and makeup. The basic concept for the ad campaign is to show a child in dance attire, surrounded by a group of children in everyday clothes, to convey that some kids “stand out of the crowd” because of their interest in dancing. Personally, I like this idea, because I can relate to it as a parent. My daughter has been drawn to images of dance since she was about 1.5 years old – before she could actually dance. We first noticed that she was completely immersed in a “Tales of Beatrix Potter” ballet shown on screen in the gift shop of the Palais Garner in Paris.

While the general theme of the ad campaign is well-defined, coming up with a shoot list is somewhat challenging, as it needs to address the expectations of the clients (there are two school co-owmes, who have complementary, i.e. slightly different, ideas for the key shots), my own ideas, and logistical constraints. As we began planning the shoot couple of weeks ago, it became apparent, that shooting with a group of 3 -8 year-olds on location (as we originally wanted) would be beyond what we could attempt within the given timeframe and budget. Thus, our posing and lighting ideas naturally narrowed down to ones that would work in a studio.

I find that inviting clients to share their ideas with me before the shoot is tremendously helpful, not only because it gives me a better opportunity to address their needs (after all, this kind of photography is part art and part service), but also because it helps them refine their own ideas of photos they would like to have. This doesn’t mean that they have to find and pin the exact shot they like – the idea of their ideal photo can be a combination of various aspects (lighting, pose, costume, etc.) of other images, or it can even form by means of eliminating what they don’t like.

Having a collection (“board” in Pinterest terms) of the images that contain elements that I want to capture/replicate in the shoot also allows me to show it to the  models (say, on an iPad), which saves enormous amount of time and effort at the posing stage. This is particularly helpful with amateur models, who, unlike pros, do not have a readily accessible arsenal of poses that they could repeatably produce.

The more my photo projects shift towards people photography, the more I find that involving other people as early as possible, as well as throughout the project, enables an enormous improvement of the quality of the final product and of the experience of the shoot itself. It is as if the creative and technical tasks become distributed among a team of people, who are very motivated and bring a variety of perspectives to the project.