So, despite this post being titled ‘The Business of Photography,’ I’m not a business expert. Since the ‘business bitch,’ Kelly Kapoor, isn’t a real person, I had to turn to the Internet for help in refocusing the goals of this site.

So I came across the website of Nicole Leanna (who’s local to the Detroit area – a nice bonus), and she’s a wedding photographer who also writes material about the business of photography. As luck would have it she was offering a free 5 day ‘creative entrepreneur’ workshop. Now maybe it’s just an easy way for her to get more subscribers or traffic to her website – idk, but I’ve got time and really nothing to lose so I’m going to give it a shot. Plus as a punishment bonus? for you readers I’m going to write about each exercise here!

So step 1: Identify your core purpose.

…

Fuck.

…

I have no clue.

…

When in doubt, write it out.

So my initial foray into photography was in the scouts. I was my troop’s historian for like 8+ years. I found I really loved shooting just candid pictures of people doing their thing.

Ok so that explains why I love the street photography genre so much. It’s just candid pictures of people in their day to day lives.

If you’ve read my other posts you may recall I was interested in a career in photojournalism. Seems like there’s some parallels there – capturing images of events as they happen, unedited, just straight documentation of people and events. That might also be why I like doing reenactment shoots so much, my day to day is fairly routine and that’s likely as close as I’ll get to capturing something eventful like that. (I also really enjoy history, so that’s just a plus).

My cosplay work has been a lot of fun. It’s a chance to hang out with other sci-fi and fantasy enthusiasts and get pictures of awesome costumes. But is that a key part of what I’d like this site to become? Do I want to try and turn this into a “Hey come book me for your cosplay pictures.” Kind of site? … I’m not sure.

Wildlife, landscapes, and nature… I do really enjoy taking photos of animals (I was going to say shooting animals, but that means something different). Nature (meaning trees and plants and whatever else) it’s nice, but not really my thing. Same with landscapes, I can appreciate them but I don’t go crazy hunting for landscape shots.

General portraits and studio work? Pets? I have no problem doing that if someone wants it, but generally speaking I like being out and about. Also this would require an actual studio and that’s not viable right now. Could rent one, but that’s expensive and do I see a tangible return on that investment? Not really, no.

Weddings and babies and engagements? No.

Sports? Never tried, but I’m not really a sports guys. So probably not.

Cars? This is the motor city after all… Cars are ok, but I’ve never been that passionate about them.

Astrophotography? I love it. But I can’t realistically build a portfolio of that while balancing my current career needs.

Product Photography? Yeah that’s probably marketable, I’ve been shooting pictures of guns for a few years now. Probably integrates well with the reenactment stuff. I’m also a certified firearms instructor so that (at least in my mind) gives some level of credibility to firearms photography. But shooting stills of products gets a bit repetitive and dull after a while. So I’d need to balance studio with on site work.

Macro? I could take it or leave it.

Travel? Well I love traveling but that’s expensive, plus when I travel I find myself trying to practice mostly street photography.

So what’s that add up to. Well I knew what I liked to shoot already and last year I reorganized my site to reflect that. So that’s: Street, some portraits, firearms, and wildlife.

So let’s examine my current surroundings relative to those interests.

Street: I live in the sticks of suburbia, and it’s Detroit’s suburbia. So there are opportunities there, but they are limited. I have been sort of feeding my street and photojournalism desires by going to different events and this is something I want to continue going forward.

Portraits: Yeah, this is doable. It would need to scale if I ever involved a studio, but location based stuff is a definite option.

Wildlife: Apart from visiting the zoo, there’s not much here. I’m not counting birds and squirrels, I don’t see the fun in chasing around birds all day. If I lived someplace more remote I’d definitely move this to be a focal point of my site though.

Firearms: This could work, definitely. I could see doing product work for holsters, accessories, guns. It would leverage portrait photography skills and would probably resonate with military reenactments.

So I think the next logical step here is to either split the site: Firearms/Portraits/Street – which is similar to what I have currently. Or to focus on what’s marketable: Firearm Product Photography and let the street and reenactment work reside in the background on a personal projects section…

This whole post has shifted from “identify your core purpose” to “finding your niche”… But whatever, that’s probably a necessary step that needed to happen.

So leaving that thread for a moment and going back to higher level goals. Is this (or should this become) a for profit site?

I’m inclined to say no.

The chances of turning this into a profitable business are very slim and I think the chances of ruining what I find so compelling about photography would be high if I chased this as a business.

So if I’m not trying to sell services. Then do I try and sell prints? I can’t see that being successful. I feel like the market is way too saturated.

So that leaves me on the current path. Running a blog that’s also a portfolio.

Let’s pull on that thread for a moment. A blog focused on photography. But a blog needs traffic to be successful. It needs a reason to visit and it needs a better reason to visit repeatedly.

A blog focused on using my own experiences to help people improve their photography? I’m not much of a teacher, so no.

A blog focused on documenting community events and people’s stories? With product shots as a secondary folder? I think I’m getting closer, but it leaves the open question – now that people are on the site what do they do? What brings them back?

One potential concern is that to build a portrait portfolio ideally it would be a small collection of images of a specific person. Could just approach this as a theme, like WW2 Reenactors for example.

I’m thinking I flip it. Make the focal point of the blog the various events I attend, then group my portfolio by street and portrait work – possibly divided up by city. Making each city and event a unique story/project. Again, similar to how I’m structured now.

So my core purpose: To document things I see, places I go, and people I meet.

Now that’s not exactly a business, and with that purpose why would someone visit my site, and return to my site. So that needs to be resolved still.

… Fast forward to my drive home from work…

A photography blog documenting the things I see, places I go, and people I meet.

Focusing the blog on the events and treating each one as a story, with the options for side projects – portraits of people I meet while walking in downtown Romeo, as an example.

It’s a paradigm shift away from trying to offer photography as a service. But I can still incorporate the different aspects of photography that I love – street, journalism, portraits…

So after a long, repetitive, and somewhat rambling post aside, I think that’s Step 1 of Challenge 1 done. Only took 10 hours. Off to a running start!