Finding Stuff to Shoot, Portfolio Building (flash/location-studio-related)

Okay, wedding season where I am is a bit slow right now where I am and I have some down time. Any recommendations for finding stuff to build different genres for a portfolio? I'm not sure how to go about it. Do you approach people to shoot for free, negotiate a price based off of prior work in an unrelated genre, show up to public events, contact event organizers, look up groups/bands/games, etc?

Looking into: restaurant, real estate, sports (ideally some flash, i.e. red bull style), architecture

Any tips for building a portfolio in a new market or genre without stepping on other photographer's feet / undermining brand image, etc? Thanks!

Find a couple of local photography groups on Meetup, and go to their events.

idkdc wrote in post #17324085
Okay, wedding season where I am is a bit slow right now where I am and I have some down time. Any recommendations for finding stuff to build different genres for a portfolio? I'm not sure how to go about it. Do you approach people to shoot for free, negotiate a price based off of prior work in an unrelated genre, show up to public events, contact event organizers, look up groups/bands/games, etc?

Looking into: restaurant, real estate, sports (ideally some flash, i.e. red bull style), architecture

Any tips for building a portfolio in a new market or genre without stepping on other photographer's feet / undermining brand image, etc? Thanks!

If it was me, I would pick what I wanted to work on and just start doing so. If your doing it just for fun then things are different but if your doing it to expand your business then charge what you are worth. If you want to shoot food but have never done so before you might start with picking up some things and shooting in your studio to build a base portfolio then branch out to other restaurants. Charge what you are worth and dont worry about stepping on toes, you are a business the toes are a business and if you snag their clients then so be it.