Diversity: The Senior Market
The last year has been tough for everybody in professional photography. However, there’s a growing group of photographers who have been working hard to find “new cheese”. That statement won’t make an ounce of sense if you haven’t read “Who Moved My Cheese?’ The summary is simply the mouse who went out and looked for new cheese found more food and survived, but the one who refused to change habits and just waited for the cheese to be put back starved.
I’m convinced, as are thousands of professional photographers, part of the answer is in diversity in your business model. It’s tough to be a one trick pony in this economy, but a little diversity brings in new clients, new applications and challenges your skill set.
Have you thought about the high school senior market? You don’t need the entire school system, just a handful of enthusiastic seniors. But you need to do it right – and nobody does it better than Larry Peters , Ralph Romaguera and Fuzzy Duenkel , just to name a few. Check out the look and feel of their images – all different, but each with his own style. You can catch all three of them on the speaking circuit and it will be well worth your time to pick up ideas on how to get started with seniors.
Years back I spent some time on the road with Larry through a Hasselblad University program. One of the techniques Larry was using at the time was to photograph a half dozen or so seniors free of charge and then send them out as his ambassadors. It’s marketing brilliance at its best. These kids had a blast – they worked with one of the finest photographers and they wrapped up their high school years with a portfolio that captured their personalities.
It was a LONG LONG (notice the use of double “longs”) time ago that I had my senior shot done. And, I want extra points for having the nerve to share the image here!
Notice how the glasses hid the unibrow. My left ear used to stick out even farther than the one you can see, but that’s the way it was. The photographer came into the school and sat us down one at time, knocking off the entire senior class in half a day. Photographs came in an envelope with the usual combo of 8×10’s, 5×7’s and wallets. Everybody’s images looked exactly the same.
Today, it’s all about personality and capturing who the subject is as an individual. You still have to know how to do a more traditional head shot, but for the most part it’s about the interests of the senior. It’s about capturing who they are more than how they look. It’s about their hobbies, friends, achievements and their aspirations.
Most important of all, think about the impact you might have on a future client. In most cases a full portrait session for a high school senior will probably represent the subject’s first truly professional photographic experience. If you do it right, it might just open the door for future business from Mom and Dad or the student themselves, when they get married or have other needs for a professional photographer.
Check out the story of one of Don Blair’s seniors 20 years later! I wrote about it in an earlier post last year. He absolutely remembered Don and was actually excited to see him again.
Photographing seniors and doing it well expands your skill set, forces you to learn and understand lighting/posing, even photojournalism and best of all gives you an opportunity to fine tune your creative skills! It’s a new year with lots of the same challenges, but it’s not about survival of the fittest any longer. It’s about survival of the most diverse and most creative.
This post has 3 comments
February 5th, 2010
great article hope gave more ideas future thanks
February 5th, 2010
Skip,
You’ve been talking a lot about the need to be diversified recently, but almost all the other leaders in the industry seem to be saying that the best thing to do is to find a niche and cater to that niche, and that you’ll be better and do better by doing so.
On the other hand, you are saying this, Bambi has extended to doing more portraits and pet portraits, Jessica Claire seems to be working the family angle a bit more… so, as a starting photographer, is it best to settle in a niche at first until established and known and then branch out, or is it going to be best to be moderately diverse (weddings and portraits)?
Thanks!
February 6th, 2010
Josiah, in a way we’re all saying a lot of the same thing. My personal opinion is that photographers need to be as diverse as possible, but you need to develop your expertise one niche at a time. The last thing anybody should do is become a “Master of Mediocrity” trying to position themselves as an expert in everything, before they really do have the expertise.
The real success stories out there seem to have developed an expertise one niche first. Then they start to add to their bag of tricks in other areas. Bambi is a good example. Probably as little as 5-7 years ago her business was almost exclusively weddings. Since she was doing such beautiful work with engagement sessions it was only a short jump to do family and children.
Brought in as one of Microsoft’s Icons of Imaging, she was their guest on a trip to Iceland and her work as an outdoor landscape photographer was featured in Rangefinder Magazine last year. The work is stunning and holds up against the very best outdoor photographers.
There’s an article on diversity in Focus on Weddings about Jonathon Canlas, Dawn Shields and Vicki Taufer. Here’s the link: http://bit.ly/5hpsqR See if the concept makes sense to you.
I don’t disagree with anyone who feels it’s better to develop strength in a niche, but my opinion still is that most photographers are going to be stronger if they’re more than just a one trick pony and able to handle whatever job comes through the door or, have a partner they can refer business too, so that you never have to say, “Sorry, I don’t do that kind of work.”