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?”
Instead, Melcher suggests photographers “shoot what they
love” and make their niche “talent.” “No one can copy talent,” he says, with the
theory being that if you create images that are better than anyone else’s,
yours will sell.
I agree that finding an uncovered niche is not the answer,
but shooting what you love—with talent—is not the answer either. There is a
huge oversupply of excellent imagery on every conceivable subject that people
“love to shoot.” Even if the photographer were to manage to produce something
that is great and somewhat unique (within a high-demand category), that image
will be buried among hundreds of other similar images of great quality.
The problems are two-fold.
First, customers will never agree that any particular image is the best of
its genre. There will be differences of opinion, with different customers
spending their money on different images.
Second, oversupply is already great, and there is no way to limit additional
new images entering the market. 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.
Melcher responded with: “If shooting what you love with
talent is not the answer, then I wonder what is. Your analysis of the stock
photo market presupposes that it is similar to making widgets. In other words,
that photography fills an existing demand. If that was true, you would be 100 %
correct. However, photographs can create their own demand. That is what I am
writing about here.”
That may be true, but it is very rare for a photograph to
create its own demand and for someone to say, “I have to find a way to use that
photograph simply because it exists.” Photographers may not like to think of
what they create in that way, but it is indeed more similar to making widgets.
To make money, the photographer will first need to find a customer who has a
need, and then find a way to fulfill that need. It will be more about finding
assignments and less and less about shooting stock on speculation.
Photographers could make good money shooting stock on speculation in the 1990s,
when there was more demand than supply. Now, supply far exceeds demand, and
shooting on speculation no longer works anywhere near as well as it once did.
For one small perspective on supply, consider that PhotoShelter hosts the
archives of more than 65,000 contributors, totaling over 50,000,000 images—and
this number is growing by more than 100,000 images per month.
I attended Paula Lerner’s very interesting seminar at PhotoPlus Expo. She
earned an Emmy for her six-part multimedia series “Behind The Veil” about women
in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The work is excellent, but she was paid almost
nothing for its use.
However, the project did lead to her getting a series of well-paying multimedia
production shoots for Boston University and other multimedia projects as well.
If a photographer is shooting what he or she loves with an eye to it being
self-promotional, that is fine. In such cases, what is invested in time, energy
and money is all part of the promotional budget. But in most cases, it is
unrealistic to expect to sell such work for enough to realize a profit. It will
be increasingly rare for photographers to really make money from such projects.
To make money, you’ve got to find customers, learn what they need and then
deliver it.