I know I know...I haven't blogged since last year. Well I haven't done a lot lately in terms of photography that was worth mentioning until recently.
I lost my inspiration for a while. I wasn't photographing people, and I didn't travel anywhere after Ensenada that I felt I could get any good pictures. Things were pretty stagnant for a while. However, I went to a networking event for people living in Orange County through the social networking site
LinkedIN. Unlike Facebook and MySpace, LinkedIn specializes in people who want to network for their career, not to meet friends and date. I've found it to be a really good site and highly recommend it.
So I went to a live event to meet with other business people in Orange County and do some networking regarding my daytime job which is e-Learning design and development. The other reason why I really wanted to go to this event is because it was being hosted at the studio of
Steve Anderson Photography. You should check out his site, he's got some great stuff, and I wanted to pick his brain.
So I went to the event and mingled with a few people for a while until I was introduced to Mr. Anderson himself. He is a very nice guy, and he was more than happy to give advice to a few of us up-and-coming photographers who showed up to this LinkedIn event. He also told us all a bit of advice that I had heard before, but needed to hear again - find yourself a niche. Specialize. Those that specialize in a particular type of photography are more successful than those who don't.
I had heard this before, and that's one of the reasons why I decided to try and make my brand more people-based. I don't think I have the patience for weddings, but people photography tends to be popular, so I thought doing portraits would be more lucrative than just landscapes. The problem is, there are a lot of photographers out there (like Steve Anderson) who do portrait work, AND they have nice studios with lights and fancy equipment that I can't afford as a part-time photographer. They also take some great pictures. That's some tough competition in an already ultra-competitive field.
So I pondered...and I thought. I love photography, and I didn't want to give it up, but I didn't think doing portraits was the right path for me. But if not portraits - what was my brand? What would my niche be? What could I do to set myself apart from others? Then I had an epiphany, although the answer had been in front of me the whole time.
From the very beginning when I studied with
Robert Hansen, he thought my pier pictures at sunset should be my emphasis because they were my strongest work. I had resisted because I didn't want to be a one-trick pony just taking shots of piers all the time. But as I looked back at my work, particularly my most popular ones - including many of my pier pictures, I noticed they all had one look in common - they were all long exposures. My most popular photos purchased on
http://www.istockphoto.com/ were long exposures. My most viewed pictures of Flickr were long exposures. My most creative work in New York were long exposures. The kind of photography that excited me the most almost always involved long exposures.
So that's it. That's my niche. That's my emphasis. That's my strength. I am a long exposure photographer.
With this in mind, I've already thought of lots of other images I can't wait to create. Of course, I always have in the back of my mind, "What if this leads nowhere? Should I have stuck with just doing portraits?" Well another thing I learned from Steve Anderson is to go with your passion, and my passion involves taking long exposures. It's what I love to do, and it's what I'm doing, and hopefully one day it will be noticed and bring me success as a photographer.
And if it doesn't - I'm going to have a lot of fun doing it anyway.
