Specialist or Generalist:

[neumanns]

To those of you who make a decent side income or full living with photography.

No reason in particular, just thought it may be an interesting survey.

[Adaptive]

You can specialize, people will always approach you and ask "can you also do this kind of photography?"

Personally I specialize in a few areas but I am always open to do anything that comes around. I'm sure most people are the same way.

[jra]

You can specialize, people will always approach you and ask "can you also do this kind of photography?"

Personally I specialize in a few areas but I am always open to do anything that comes around. I'm sure most people are the same way.

I would agree...no matter what you "specialize" in, people will eventually ask you to do other stuff. If I feel that I can do the job, I'll give it a shot. That said, if it's something that I have little or no experience in, I'll let the customer know that up front. If they still want me to give it a shot, I'll usually offer a full refund if they aren't satisfied that I did the job properly.

[Hikin Mike]

I just do nature/landscape stuff. I just do this part-part-part time...just a few arts and craft shows each year. People will still ask me if I also do weddings, portraits etc I tell them "No, I hate people". :lol:

[Adaptive]

I would agree...no matter what you "specialize" in, people will eventually ask you to do other stuff. If I feel that I can do the job, I'll give it a shot. That said, if it's something that I have little or no experience in, I'll let the customer know that up front. If they still want me to give it a shot, I'll usually offer a full refund if they aren't satisfied that I did the job properly.

Yes, I see we are on the same page as I'm sure many others are..

Thanks for going into detail what I was saying. Can I hire you to post for me? hehe
I'm not very good with words lately and people get all bent out of shape...

:)

[PhotosGuy]

With a background in advertising & editorial, I'm used to shooting whatever comes along & I like the variety, with the exception of weddings. Someone came up to me while I was shooting a car at a meet & asked, "Do you do weddings"?
I said, "Only if you have someone hold a shotgun on me!"
She laughed.

[Wazza]

Generalise - if I have the skill
weddings/motorsports/landscapes/aviation mostly

[tim]

I only photograph weddings at the moment, but i'd consider photographing other things if I thought I had the skills and someone wanted to pay me for it.

[crash331]

People say weddings are the worst, but I have tackled 3 of them so far and have had good results. I don't find them that much worse than portraits. i guess if I ran into a bridezilla it would suck, though.

[photoguy6405]

I don't sell anything yet, but am in the beginning stages of setting up a small part-time business, so I'll give it a shot.

I tended to generalize too much and I felt that my work suffered because of it. I was becoming sort of a "jack of all trades, master of none" kind of guy. So, I fell back to a few areas that I truly like the best, and concrentrate on those, but will still do some other areas if need be.

That said, there are some things I won't do... i.e weddings. I'm just not a people person like that.

[neumanns]

Actually this poll has surprised me a bit...I never figured the first option would garner 10% I figured that would be lower. I figured the second option would be the most popular. The third option, 50%...unexpected.

[John Mireles]

I am not a fan of doing whatever comes along. If a potential job doesn't fit with my core business, then I'll refer it to someone who does specialize in that work. I used to take any job that came along, but now I find that taking jobs that I don't specialize in are just a distraction from my core, most enjoyable and profitable work.

There was a time though that I'd do pretty much any job that came in the door. The problem with that is that I never developed or marketed any one specialty to the point that I could get paid a lot of money for it. Doing whatever job that came in kept me from pursuing the better clients with more money since I was too busy doing the day to day.

Now, I specialize in three core areas: weddings, portraits, and lifestyle advertising. I have a different web site for each so that I will be viewed as a specialist by my individuals in my target markets. If someone is looking for the best wedding photographer, they will feel confident hiring me. Likewise for portrait or advertising work.

If I try to show a little of this and a little of that to try and please everyone, I'll never be able to get the clients with the vision and the budgets who will connect with me.

This quote is from Jack Trout's seminal book Positioning: "The specialist always wins out over the generalist." People don't care that you're a jack of all trades, they want you to be a master of what it is that they're looking for.

John

[cowpix]

I specialize, but every once in a while I do the odd commercial job if I have the time and it intrigues me.