When most photographers start out, they photograph a wide range of genres and eventually find one or a few genres they enjoy and would like to specialize in. If you want to start making money from your photography, you will encounter an important question: should you specialize or be a generalist? This excellent video features an experienced photographer discussing the question and offerings some useful advice.
Coming to you from David Bergman with Adorama TV, this great video discusses whether it is better to be a specialist or generalist photographer. If you are a hobbyist, you should not feel any pressure to specialize; just shoot whatever makes you happy. On the other hand, if you are planning to make money from your photography, the majority of professionals will tell you it is better to specialize. Professional photography is already quite inundated, and as such, it can be tough to distinguish yourself and attract clients. If you are a generalist, you may be competent in many genres, but you might not particularly excel at any of them, and as such, you will have trouble making yourself notable. If you specialize, you will probably be better able to develop work that really catches the eyes of potential clients. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Bergman.
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There's specializing, and then there's really specializing.
I thought that by only photographing wildlife, I was a specialist. But a friend of mine shoots ONLY Whitetail Deer, Largemouth Bass, and Wild Turkeys. Makes a full time living and supports his family by just photographing those 3 species.
I wonder if there's any full time pro who makes 100 percent of his living on just one species.
I used to specialise. I shot events and parties for the uber-rich. (I fell into it by accident, because I was traditionally a DoP in TV and a billionaire client asked me to film his daughter's birthday party, and I shot some stills for the fun of it). I enjoyed it, so I skilled up and learnt the specific skills - now I can handle almost anything they throw at me, (and some are very ambitious...)
But then I tried my hand at headshots and practiced. Turned out I was pretty good at it, (became LinkedIn UK's sole preferred headshot photographer), so I added that to my specialism.
But I like lighting and fine detail so I practiced at product work. e-commerce and arty stuff. Turns out I have a knack and clients loved my stuff. I practiced a lot and my product images are amongst the best in the area. So I added that to my specialism.
I started to photograph some music events. Because of my events work and the ability to photograph in almost impossible lighting (those parties have some wild lights), it seems those skills translated to music. So I added that.
Throughout all this I've been doing all the post work and retouching, and I ended up doing retouch work for other photographers and agencies - so I added that to my specialisms.
On a big headshot job, the same client asked me to photograph their interiors. I'd never done it before, but I'd become pretty skilled at compositing and modelling light on Raw files, as well as lighting skills I'e picked up. Using a Tilt/Shift lens is a doddle so I did the job and they loved it. One of my images made it to the front page of an industry magazine. I really enjoyed it, so I practiced - a lot. I'm good enough to shoot quality marketing images now - so I guess I'll add that as a specialism.
Photography came second to my TV work. I've been shooting broadcast TV for 25 years with a couple of industry awards to my name. I've edited more programmes than I can remember and I've directed 3x studio TV series. But as well as that I've worked as TV studio lighting supervisor. So I guess that would all count as a specialism. (I tell my clients to think of me as 2x people... video and photography).
Over the years I've learnt how to do make up. And whilst I've only done it for photography, I ended up doing it for a whole year in a freelance capacity every weekend for an international TV sports programme. 'll not be brave enough to boast a specialism, but I was doing it better than some of the other makeup artists when I wasn't available.
And then over Covid when we couldn't work, I thought I'd learn TV grading. And I ended up doing the tricky grades for a major BBC documentary that their (two) time served graders couldn't manage. I just applied what I'd learned with my Raw processing and multi-layering. Different workspace and the need to track on moving objects, but I bettered the experienced guys.
I say this NOT to boast of my achievements, I'm nothing special...
But I write only to remark that nothing we do is rocket science. (I often joke if I was clever, I'd be doing something else).
We learn skills and there is often an overlap. If we learn more skills, then we can be good at more than one thing. It certainly does require a lot of hard work, and oodles of time learning new things. I'm entirely self taught (I'm an old fart and I started long before we had YouTube), so I'm used to learning through practice.
Turns out I have a wide portfolio and I can offer as good a job as many specialists. Which is just as well, because sometimes the pickings can be thin, and it's useful to be able to do multiple things if we can do them well.
Whilst I can admire those who specialise, I don't think we need to. But the trick is never to offer a service unless we can do it as well (call it 95%) as the specialists.