Photography is a rewarding career that gives you many opportunities to flex those creative muscles. As many more people pursue photography as a career, it’s more important than ever to diversify your craft and offerings in order to stand out in your local market and industry.
Here, we’ve put together six great ways to diversify as a photographer and make your business and brand incredibly attractive to prospective brands and clients.
1. Expand into multiple niches
It’s very easy as a photographer to focus on your preferred types of photography, and not diversify. However, as we all know, the market has many talented photographers, so focusing on a single genre might slim down your chances. Now, there is an argument to be made for specializing in a single niche of photography, but if you’re looking to expand into newer opportunities, learning a new genre could be the boost you need.
Find industries that fit into your current interests and workflow. One could be the industry you’re most passionate about, and the other could be related to opportunity and work potential. For example, I love the outdoor industry, but I also focus on creative- and travel-related brands to extend my client base, without deterring from the brand I’ve built. The travel and creative industries are expansive and offer extensive and diverse brands.
Expanding to at least two or three primary industries can help you diversify and work with a wide range of clients, which not only helps your business, but also keeps things fresh and exciting.
2. Learn and develop new styles of visual creatives
This is also important when working with different clients. If you focus on just one style of photography, if can sometimes hinder your chances of landing a large gig simply because brands love to see diversity in your work, and expect a variety of styles in the shoots or projects they hire you for.
This doesn’t mean you have showcase all styles of photography on social media, but you should at least show these styles — say, both digital and film photography — on your website, portfolio, or media kit, and make it part of your content offerings. It will definitely pay dividends in your future work.
3. Grow your presence and content on social media
This goes without saying in the year 2020 and onward. Whether you like it or not, social media is a part of our lives and the way we share information and promote ideas and businesses. It can also be a treasure trove of networking opportunities and possible collaborations.
For years now, Instagram has been the obvious choice for sharing beautiful content, and while the platform has shifted and changed over the years, it still is a fantastic tool, and offers endless opportunities to share, promote, and drive traffic to your content and other channels.
Don’t just focus on one social media channel. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, even TikTok are great options if they work with what you are shooting, sharing, or teaching. Yes, it takes time and effort to build and maintain each channel, but it can pay off in so many ways; from networking and relationship building, to photography work, to monetizing the channels you grow and build up. Social media opens the world up to your photography business.
4. Learn and offer video
Video may seem daunting, and professional videography is a job in its own right, but as a photographer you likely already have the tools to shoot video. Most enthusiast or professional level DSLR and mirrorless cameras are built to shoot photos and video at a pro level. Even consumer-level drones can shoot beautiful, brilliant 4K footage these days. So why not utilize this in your work?
Over the last few years, brands and content needs have shifted to include much more video for social media and mobile marketing. While the need for photography remains, if you add video to your creative arsenal, it will make you much more attractive to brands who need both photo and video.
Even if you don’t ever see yourself becoming focused solely on video, give it a chance. Start shooting, editing, learning the basics, and sharing your work on social media. Even a beautiful 30-second to minute-long video could spark the interest of a prospective client. You already have the tools at hand, so while not learn a new craft while you’re at it?
5. Guide Workshops
Another way to diversify as a photographer is lead or guide photography workshops or hold online seminars. This could be done virtually, via a streaming platform, or, once it’s safe to travel and social distancing regulations have been lifted, in the city you’re based or a beautiful destination that is known for photography. When you offer workshops, you combine valuable education with gorgeous photography, and it can really be attractive for many.
Now, there are several ways to go about planning a workshop. You can do it on your own, and utilize the resources and network you’ve built over the years you’ve been shooting, and partner with a other photographers or guides to create a more robust experience. No matter how you look at it, workshops are a great way to diversify as a photographer. You learn valuable teaching lessons, connect with people around the world, and add a new skill to your resume.
6. Host Podcasts
This might seem like an unexpected option, but podcasts have risen in popularity since roughly six years ago and are bigger than ever. As a photographer, you have a very popular topic to zero in on, and you can possibly develop a podcast that is resourceful, inspirational, but still different enough to stand out.
Listen to the Adorama Podcast here
The best part about a podcast is that it doesn’t take much time to create. There are few barriers to entry, as start up and equipment costs are low, and there are several easy options to host an RSS feed and distribute your podcasts to most major podcast platforms.
It really has never been easier to start your own podcast. And in the end, it’s really about creating a conversation around an important topic. If you can take a few hours out of your week to write, record, and edit a podcast, you can have a consistent audio platform for your brand. And if it grows well, you have the ability to land sponsorships and make money, sometimes from your living room. You’ll be flexing a different creative muscle — audio recording and editing — and it could lead to new, exciting opportunities.
Feature photo by Ramiz Dedaković on Unsplash
