DIYP Challenge – What is Your Photography Niche?
Share:
In my ongoing quest to streamline my portfolio and re-brand my photography business, one of my biggest challenges is figuring out what exactly is my style – or in other words – what is my photography niche?
In order to successfully market your work to art directors, the prevailing wisdom in the photography community is that you need to develop a personalized style to your work – something that is unique to you.
Of course, finding your personal photography niche is much more difficult than it seems – especially if you are just starting out. It takes time (and a lot of dead ends) before you start to see consistency in your portfolio and longer still before you can narrow that down to a specific photography niche.
So in this article, I am going to attempt to define my photography niche – and I challenge DIYP readers to submit a link to your own portfolio in the comments along with an explanation as to what you think your niche might be.
Is “Water Photographer” A Thing?
To define what I think is my personal photography niche, I am going to start with my Stocksy portfolio (a sample size of nearly 1000 photos).
This is a small proportion of my entire Lightroom catalog, but I think its a good place to start.
Most of what I submit to Stocksy is personal work – so for the most part these are photos that I wanted to create, photographed and processed in a style that I find personally appealing.
This is also a tightly curated collection – Stocky’s notoriously ruthless editors (who know a lot more about what an art director wants to see than I do) have decided that every image in my portfolio is marketable in some way.
So, looking through my galleries, there are a few tends that start to emerge.
First, I think that most of my work has a consistent style – colorful, sharp, mostly wide angle and with people. I would also say a tad contrived and static.
I know that I am much more comfortable photographing manufactured moments rather than genuine spontaneous moments, so unfortunately I can see that reflected in my work (its something I’m working on).
I also like to think of myself as an “action sports” guy – but besides a few rock climbing photos, I just don’t see that in my portfolio. I see more of a retired action sports guy who now has two kids and a house in the suburbs (go figure).
Finally, when I look through my gallery categories – there is one category that seems to define my work… Water.
Nearly 50% of my entire portfolio contains images that were taken in, in front of, beside, or under water.
(I had no idea that water figures so prominently in my work – although I probably should have guessed – every time I go camping in the southwest it subconsciously stresses me out that there is no flowing water in the creeks).
I guess that makes me a “Water Photographer”.
What Is Your Photography Niche?
What do you think – is “water photographer” accurate – or do I need to narrow that down more?
What is your photography niche?
Leave a comment below with a link to your portfolio and a description of what you think your photography style represents.
I think it will be interesting to see how we define ourselves vs. how others view our work.
(And be nice – mean comments will be deleted).
JP Danko
JP Danko is a commercial photographer based in Toronto, Canada. JP can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
Join the Discussion
DIYP Comment Policy
Be nice, be on-topic, no personal information or flames.
14 responses to “DIYP Challenge – What is Your Photography Niche?”
Link to my portfolio: http://www.artofsport.cz
I love to shoots sports events and put emphasis to clean or sometimes even artistic composition while following the light, natural or flashed.
love your job! thanks for sharing!
I was watching your photos and love them! it’s a really good job.
borjaviba.wix.com/photos
Great article.
I believe my niche to be quirky, bold and surreal Still Life photography and creative Product and Jewellery photos.
http://www.redtownphotography.com
I totally agree, that success of business is highly dependant on precisely targeting a specific niche. For example, I kind a bugs me, when someone describes himself/herself as wedding photographer, but at least 50% of portfolio wall are landscapes and cars.
To those people, I would suggest to create separate web page, or at least categories, to separate personal work and business.
As for me – I am not a professional photographer and I don’t even have a portfolio, but, if I would have to choose a specific niche – I would say, that I do concert/venue photography.
Shameless plug here: http://www.flickr.com/3rdhalf/
Portfolio : https://500px.com/pbk
My niche strange, weird, body paint and sfx makeup portrait but I make animals, archi and landscape for the fun.
Water photography is defiantly a thing, but it may need some sort of explanation. For myself? It seems to be becoming motorcycles in motion. Its very hard for me to make sure that every shot I post isn’t a bike, shot from a moving vehicle. Dose anyone instagram? ; @samluckyman
my niche is LARP ;)
a great to travel in the past (or back to the futur ;) ) at easy cost.
Did you ever dreamed beeing an invisible street photographer in the middle of “the good, the bad and the ugly” ? Or in a battlechip ? Or … whatever you can imagine ?
with LARP it’s possible ;)
I am new in this! Photography is my new passion and I’m not a professional photographer and I don’t even have a portfolio, I’m still figuring out what is my niche – but I love nature… be nice and take a look to my fan page in facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ygsphotography
Architecture, landscapes, and the occasional nice looking woman. I’m still a bit conflicted. https://500px.com/speedofmyshutter
You just have to find a way to combine all three (which is totally doable and would be awesome) and you’re set :)
I call my niche digilomo. It stands for ‘digital lo-fi modus operandi,’ while also playing on the ideology behind Lomography. The idea is to DIY solutions to manipulate the light for fantastic and/or quirky effects while keeping the images as SOOC JPEGs. Not that I’m
anti-postprocessing, it’s just that my creativity can lose control and I function better when I set out boundaries/limitations. I prefer the literal definition of photography as “drawing with light” and wouldn’t know where to stop if I could also draw with the pixels.
Of course with these boundaries/limitations I deal mostly in the macro. I like to reverse mount lenses and do combinations. Currently beating a dead horse with a Pentax 50mm f/1.7 reverse mounted in front of a Kodak 2x teleconverter mounted in a leather sleeve attached to a 80mm extension tube adaptor with a polarizer filter situated inside. It gives a 2.7:1 macro magnification, and even though it lacks the sharpness or quality of modern glass, it gives me a sense of excitement and exploration in an art I’ve been chasing for so long.
Plus I’m broke and can’t afford new things, so it’s a budget way to be original and expressive.
Haven’t been sharing online for long but I do have a 500px account…
https://500px.com/corneliusdoomsday
http://www.vipmediastar.com I haven’t defined a cliche yet
borjaviba.wix.com/photos
Sports photography, basically equestrian and agility. All most all photos was taked with natural light.