Carving a Niche: Shooting What You Love

Posted on 11/5/2010 by Jim Pickerell | Printable Version | Comments (4)

Paul Melcher recently wrote a story that asked, “Are You Carving a Photography Niche – or Digging Your Career in a Hole?” Melcher argues that there are few inadequately covered niches left and points out that perhaps those niches that do not already have thousands of images available exist because there is no demand for the subject matter. He also asks: “If you do not know who your customers are, if you do not have your own data, how can you niche yourself?”

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Jim Pickerell is founder of www.selling-stock.com, an online newsletter that publishes daily. He is also available for personal telephone consultations on pricing and other matters related to stock photography. He occasionally acts as an expert witness on matters related to stock photography. For his current curriculum vitae go to: http://www.jimpickerell.com/Curriculum-Vitae.aspx.

Comments

Jonathan Ross Posted Nov 5, 2010
I have to agree with you on that Jim. Good article.

Bill Bachmann Posted Nov 5, 2010
I write this from location in Vietnam........ Good article. BUT here is your quote ----Normal supply/demand economic drivers do not work in stock photography, because people who are not concerned about profit create a huge portion of the supply.-----

Why then, Jim, do you keep encouraging any one who owns a camera to go ahead and submit to Microstock for "beer money" which continues to create the problem rather than push to have people do it correctly???

www.billbachmann.com

Paul Melcher Posted Nov 5, 2010
Jim,

That is exactly what is killing photography today. People like you who think that they are selling cement : The belief that creative photography can be summed up into a perfect set of rules and regulations, numbers and equations. You think in terms of filling holes.

What is wrong with your thinking is that you assume that buyers demand is unilateral. In other words, for two, or ten people needing a picture of a toothbrush, they will all go for the same image. However, it is not the case. Although they might have a need for an identical subject matter, they will fulfill it in a variation of ways.

Your analysis also ignores the editorial market. Most publications will publish images without even knowing the day before they even existed, nor having requested them. Actually, maybe 90% of their content, including online , Ipad, etc is made of photographs that they couldn't have possibly asked for 24 hours before. Thus the images create the demand.

"To make money they will first need to find a customer who has a need and then find a way to fulfill that need." you writes. And how, may I ask, do you achieve this?

Finally, If you don't beleive you can create a demand with your photographs, then I wonder why you or anyone becomes a photographer.

Paul Melcher

John Harris Posted Nov 6, 2010
Paul Melcher surely has a point. With all respect a "Says Law" supply/demand model (however well informed and carefully nuanced) does not adequately explain the operation of the economy (as the ongoing wider crisis has made clear) - social reality always seems a deal more complex as it unfolds and mechanistic, even fatalistic precepts may be part of the problem not the solution - ideas themselves are, after all, a material force. We've seen that the digital revolution enabled a consolidation that has mostly moved profits from producers up to the top executives of an increasingly small number of powerfully dominant companies - as has happened across much of industry. In our case this near monopoly is defended by a low price/high volume/quick sale strategy (with subscription, preferred supplier discount etc. etc.) "for the benefit of the customer". This "Savvy Marketing", whilst mesmerising many photographers into wide eyed acquiescence and subsequent penury, is intended to remove any competition for market share and thus further consolidates the monopoly position. It is as if we were selling bags of cement via Wal-Mart. Publishers meanwhile, as the digital revolution continues, will find they must distinguish their content from that of their competitors. Those producing outside or on the peripheries of this bloated oligarchy of "content providers" who are so obviously compromised by an oversupply of mediocrity, can see that customer requirements may yet create opportunities for inspired photography as the transformations continue.. john harris

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