which type of photography business is easier to break in ?

airfrogusmc wrote in post #10272805
Niche is by far the hardest to get into because you usually have to have specific skills and real knowledge of the field. Like say medical photography which I do have some experience with. First you probably need to have worked at a hospital as a staff photographer for a while and that requires an education in photography. For the job I had its was at least a B/A in photography and 5 years professional experience and a smoke'n portfolio. The reason everyone isn't doing it is because its hard work and take years to just get started. 4 years of college for one. Weddings, yeah, thats tough. Just put your name on Craigs list.

I think you are confusing niche photography with your specific experience but the fact remains that niche photography is by far the easiest of all to get into and gain national recognition. You example of being a medical photographer takes a few years for school and OJT....what do you think it takes to be the best wedding photographer in the country, prob 50years of experience and 10K-15K weddings, compare that your your undergrad in radiology!!!

Sure if you want your niche to be photographing the international space station you must first become and astronaut! But thats just one example...If you want your niche to be corn flakes all you need is 5bucks, a camera and a grocery store! With a few thousand photos on a website all of cornflakes you could make a legitimate claim that you are the number 1 corn flake photographer in the world!

Same model holds true for the internet business...Succesful startups in intenet companies are usually the only one in their specific niche and thats what makes them popular!

CoolHandMatt wrote in post #10273474
I think you are confusing niche photography with your specific experience but the fact remains that niche photography is by far the easiest of all to get into and gain national recognition.

Sure if you want your niche to be photographing the international space station you must first become and astronaut! But thats just one example...If you want your niche to be corn flakes all you need is 5bucks, a camera and a grocery store! With a few thousand photos on a website all of cornflakes you could make a legitimate claim that you are the number 1 corn flake photographer in the world!

Same model holds true for the internet business...Succesful startups in intenet companies are usually the only one in their specific niche and thats what makes them popular!

Your comments show how little you know about the commercial and advertising photography world. Most of the commercial niche photographers that I know are extremely specialize and have very specialized knowledge of their fields and have been working in their specialties for years and are making a good living supporting themselves and their families.

Most worked for other photographers for years and learned how to deal with the art directors, designers and other creatives they have to work with everyday as well as making connections and they are valuable and are successful because of being great at what they do and also have a lot of knowledge of the fields they specialize in. If you have knowledge of the field or know the people that would hire a photographer to shoot things related to those specialties you ain't gonna get the work so because of all of what I mentioned those niches are very hard to get work in.

And in your example you can make that claim but the people that work with the corporations and agencies that hire photographers are not going to hire you to shoot their products so you can say what you want but that ain't gonna support the family.

CoolHandMatt wrote in post #10273474
I think you are confusing niche photography with your specific experience but the fact remains that niche photography is by far the easiest of all to get into and gain national recognition. You example of being a medical photographer takes a few years for school and OJT....what do you think it takes to be the best wedding photographer in the country, prob 50years of experience and 10K-15K weddings, compare that your your undergrad in radiology!!!

Sure if you want your niche to be photographing the international space station you must first become and astronaut! But thats just one example...If you want your niche to be corn flakes all you need is 5bucks, a camera and a grocery store! With a few thousand photos on a website all of cornflakes you could make a legitimate claim that you are the number 1 corn flake photographer in the world!

Same model holds true for the internet business...Succesful startups in intenet companies are usually the only one in their specific niche and thats what makes them popular!

I shot high end weddings for a very long time. When I switched to what I shoot now 12 years ago my min was $5500. My average around $9,000. I did this while I worked as the staff photographer for the hospital full time. I shot 30 weddings a year and turned that many away a year. Getting into the wedding biz is very easy now. Shooting commercial work for corporations and agencies is so much harder to get into. I've done both back when it was much harder to get into the wedding biz and the commercial/advertising world was/is much harder to get into.

picard wrote in post #10273242
how about porn photography?

lol
Those kinds of photographers are usually called content producers and many of them are going out of business due to the fact that the current generation of bad gals all take self-pics with cell phone cameras and upload them for free to the web.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #10273599
I shot high end weddings for a very long time. When I switched to what I shoot now 12 years ago my min was $5500. My average around $9,000. I did this while I worked as the staff photographer for the hospital full time. I shot 30 weddings a year and turned that many away a year. Getting into the wedding biz is very easy now. Shooting commercial work for corporations and agencies is so much harder to get into. I've done both back when it was much harder to get into the wedding biz and the commercial/advertising world was/is much harder to get into.

Once again you are confusing niche photography with specialized photography. Just becuase its "a" niche dosnt mean what applys to one applys to all. For instance just because I used and arbitrary example of "corn flakes" you bring up "THE COMMERCIAL AND ADVERTISING PHOTOGRAPHY WORLD". Being an employed medical photographer is NOT a niche its a specialty, product and advertising photographers are NOT niche photographers.

Also no one cares how many wedding you have turned down and how much your amazing skills as a photographer demands!

You are missing the f-ing point, which is (and BTW this is the last time I will try and illustrate it because no matter how hard you try some photographers "just cant picture it".) Creating your own specialty or finding your own niche is the fastest and most practical way to "make it" in photography. Its a simple formula...if you want to be the worlds foremost expert on something...pick something that no one else does or knows and do that!

Ok like I said Im done with you....reply if you must but I wont waste anymore of my time with dults.

whoa Lebowski your dudeness...Allen is a good guy

I understand that you're making a distinction between niche and specialty work. Most photographers consider them to be the same, but I can understand what you mean about there being a subtle difference.

A specialty might be food photography, but a niche might be cornflakes. A specialty might be fetish, but a niche might be ropes and bondage with a ringflash lol

The difficulty with niche type of photography is that the photographer is most often identifying and creating his own market. He has little or no precedent from which to follow, so this is probably why Allen would consider it to be the hardest type of photography.

IF you go back to my previous post in this thread about doing what comes naturally...many niche photographers are just doing what comes naturally and for them it is easy. So when I read you and Allen I kind of agree with you both...niche photography is generally the hardest and at the same time easiest photography. It's the hardest for people that don't have it naturally, and the easiest for people that can do it naturally.

An example would be Helmut Newton. NOBODY has ever been able to replicate his type of fashion photography and portraiture. He literally created a market for his own work. But it came naturally to him, it was effortless. However, anybody else that would try and do the same niche would find it incredibly difficult and not effortless at all...in fact...it might be impossible to ever duplicate Newton's niche within photography.

Does that sound about right? We vibin'?

If you have to ask, you're not ready to break in to any type of professional photography. Just my opinion.

You'll know, it's as simple as that.

^ there is definitely some truth to that statement. But I still think it's worth discussion because sometimes it can help a person get on the right track and eliminate bad decisions.

Anybody around here familiar with Sun Tzu?
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win"

CoolHandMatt wrote in post #10274552
Once again you are confusing niche photography with specialized photography. Just becuase its "a" niche dosnt mean what applys to one applys to all. For instance just because I used and arbitrary example of "corn flakes" you bring up "THE COMMERCIAL AND ADVERTISING PHOTOGRAPHY WORLD". Being an employed medical photographer is NOT a niche its a specialty, product and advertising photographers are NOT niche photographers.

Also no one cares how many wedding you have turned down and how much your amazing skills as a photographer demands!

You are missing the f-ing point, which is (and BTW this is the last time I will try and illustrate it because no matter how hard you try some photographers "just cant picture it".) Creating your own specialty or finding your own niche is the fastest and most practical way to "make it" in photography. Its a simple formula...if you want to be the worlds foremost expert on something...pick something that no one else does or knows and do that!

Ok like I said Im done with you....reply if you must but I wont waste anymore of my time with dults.

So how easy do you think that is to get work in those fields? Yo can say you do that kind of work and put you shingle out but how much of that kind of work are you going to get? Wedding just go to craigs list. You'll get work. And I guess the biggest question is hows that niche thing work'n for you?

mikekelley wrote in post #10274774
If you have to ask, you're not ready to break in to any type of professional photography. Just my opinion.

You'll know, it's as simple as that.

Agreed!!!

Gentleman Villain wrote in post #10274911
Anybody around here familiar with Sun Tzu?
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win"

Some times Sun-Tzu drank too much while having a pen in hand.

Gentleman Villain wrote in post #10274583
whoa Lebowski your dudeness...Allen is a good guy

I understand that you're making a distinction between niche and specialty work. Most photographers consider them to be the same, but I can understand what you mean about there being a subtle difference.

A specialty might be food photography, but a niche might be cornflakes. A specialty might be fetish, but a niche might be ropes and bondage with a ringflash lol

The difficulty with niche type of photography is that the photographer is most often identifying and creating his own market. He has little or no precedent from which to follow, so this is probably why Allen would consider it to be the hardest type of photography.

IF you go back to my previous post in this thread about doing what comes naturally...many niche photographers are just doing what comes naturally and for them it is easy. So when I read you and Allen I kind of agree with you both...niche photography is generally the hardest and at the same time easiest photography. It's the hardest for people that don't have it naturally, and the easiest for people that can do it naturally.

An example would be Helmut Newton. NOBODY has ever been able to replicate his type of fashion photography and portraiture. He literally created a market for his own work. But it came naturally to him, it was effortless. However, anybody else that would try and do the same niche would find it incredibly difficult and not effortless at all...in fact...it might be impossible to ever duplicate Newton's niche within photography.

Does that sound about right? We vibin'?

Getting back to food photography there are guys that just shoot cooked turkeys and they are highly specialized and its almost impossible to get into that field and get work. You have to build a name for yourself first before the agencies will hire you. Personally, I would consider food photography a niche.

Furniture is another example of a highly skilled commercial area that I would also call a niche and that it takes large investments of money for equipment, an extensive knowledge of the product, connections and killer lighting and camera skills. Sure, you can put your name on craigs list but ya ain't gonna get much work because thats not how the agencies art directors hire photographers so I wouldn't say putting your name on craigs list is getting into the furniture photography biz.

And you seem to know so much about the niche world, what niche did you find so easy to get into?

Gentleman Villain wrote in post #10274583
whoa Lebowski your dudeness...Allen is a good guy

I understand that you're making a distinction between niche and specialty work. Most photographers consider them to be the same, but I can understand what you mean about there being a subtle difference.

A specialty might be food photography, but a niche might be cornflakes. A specialty might be fetish, but a niche might be ropes and bondage with a ringflash lol

The difficulty with niche type of photography is that the photographer is most often identifying and creating his own market. He has little or no precedent from which to follow, so this is probably why Allen would consider it to be the hardest type of photography.

IF you go back to my previous post in this thread about doing what comes naturally...many niche photographers are just doing what comes naturally and for them it is easy. So when I read you and Allen I kind of agree with you both...niche photography is generally the hardest and at the same time easiest photography. It's the hardest for people that don't have it naturally, and the easiest for people that can do it naturally.

An example would be Helmut Newton. NOBODY has ever been able to replicate his type of fashion photography and portraiture. He literally created a market for his own work. But it came naturally to him, it was effortless. However, anybody else that would try and do the same niche would find it incredibly difficult and not effortless at all...in fact...it might be impossible to ever duplicate Newton's niche within photography.

Does that sound about right? We vibin'?

GV when I think of niche photography I think of areas that require knowledge of the area and also require levels of skill that most others don't have. Because of this skill and knowledge one becomes connected with others in those fields and its in this way one acquires connections and its those connections that get you in the door and it will be your skill that will keep you there.

Thus areas that the GWC can't get close to because of lack of knowledge and skill. In my opinion its those specialties or niches that are going to be areas where you can make a good living in because of the knowledge it takes to get and stay in those specialties/niches therefore not everyone with a camera is your competition and knowledge and skill trump the bottom line.

Was that not a run on sentence or what

As someone said, if you need to ask the question your not ready to become pro.

Being pro needs passion (for the business and photography). Long weeks, little money, hard shoots etc until you become established enough to command a reasonable fee. Add to that 80% (IIRC) of all photography businesses go to the wall, you aren't looking at great odds!

neilwood32 wrote in post #10275636
As someone said, if you need to ask the question your not ready to become pro.

Being pro needs passion (for the business and photography). Long weeks, little money, hard shoots etc until you become established enough to command a reasonable fee. Add to that 80% (IIRC) of all photography businesses go to the wall, you aren't looking at great odds!

If you make any money the first couple of years you're already ahead of the game. And then pricing can be a double edged sword. It can be very difficult to move out of a market once you've established a price point.

The best way in my opinion is to suck it up and work for someone successful in an area you think that you want to be in for a few years so you learn what its really like. How to deal with clients, to learn from the inside about the biz of that particular area, and most important the connections you will make in the industry with the art directors and others.

But if you want to be successful you had better be serious about it. Most of my friends that tried to do it on there own are no longer at it and many that were once very successful are now hurting or out of the biz. The ones that have been successful have narrowed their approach and adapted well to all the change that has happened over the past few years.