How did you arrive at your specialization?

I found one past thread on specialization (commercial benefits of), but I have what I think is a different question than that.

For those of you who specialize, which many of you seem to, in flora, fauna, ESS, avian, is that something you always wanted to do (as pertains to photography), or did you specialize after a time of not specializing? If the latter, was it that you found that you could simply do better work in one area or that you found that one area began to have more of an appeal to you, or for some other reason that you specialized? Thank you very much for any comments.

I started out wanting to photography wildlife and flowers... I just liked taking pictures of animals and plants and things like that. However, living on Long Island there is a serious shortage of interesting animals (seals are the most exciting and they are only here a few months out of the year). So, what I found was always around were birds. It started with winter ducks, and then I got more and more into it and talked to people who were really into birds and it has continued to evolve. Where I live is an excellent place for avian photography as I live near the ocean and bays and have some grasslands and woodlands. Additionally, it's a major migration path. While I'd take the chance to photograph a tree frog or a seal over any bird, it's the birds that keep me busy and where I've had the most success (personally and commercially).

- Luke

In my case, I've been interested in wildlife since I was younger, but I also have held onto this romanticized vision of wildlife photography as some sort of exotic adventure. Traveling to remote areas to seek out animals on their turf is a thrill. I think that's the main driving force behind my continued thirst for wildlife-based travel, especially overseas. To date, it hasn't ceased to be exciting.

It helps that my landscape photography is pretty awful.

Max

Although I'm not a commercial photographer and don't have concerns about finding a market niche, I consider my specialty to be nature photography. I'm interested in all aspects of it and would broaden my horizons to include faraway places, underwater work and photomicroscopy if I had the time and money to spare. I view nature photography itself as a specialty, and avian, flora, landscapes, etc., as sub-specialties.

My specialty is avian photography and more precisely birds in flight. I have been fascinated by birds and their behaviors since I was very young. So much so, that I made them my profession. I am an avian research biologist of over 20 years. Photography has been a hobby of mine for a long time, but only recently has digital imaging come to a point where a person can capture birds in flight with regularity. That advance in camera bodies is what got me back into photography after a long hiatus. Now, I can get the images of birds doing what makes them different from almost all other animals on this planet...flying. Not to say that birds are great photographic subjects when they are on the ground, in the water, or perched. But, flying is what really gets me excited and that is what fueled my specialization. Cheers.

You mean there is something other than bugs to specialize in

Seriously, it is more of a long term interest in flowers, tiny things and especially insects, to the point where I simply *don't* remember being not interested in it. The photographic specialty evolved more as I was able to acquire both the skills and gear to shoot insects at 3x.

I started out as a city scape photographer growing up 5 miles (as the crow flies) from NYC. I was enchanted with the nature views I saw on a few CYO trips to the Catskills and Adorondacks in the 70's and have been hooked on the grand natural landscape ever since, I have travelled to NH, Alaska, NW (WA, OR), SW (AZ, NM, CO, UT), CA, Hawaii, and more recently Canadian Rockies, British Columbia, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Most of my work is the "grand landscape" with eeire light) but I also like to do abstract macros. My goal is to get to Scotland and Ireland to experience the eeire light there to witness it first hand.

Definately an interesting question that makes one think back about ones self.

When one starts using terms such as "specialize in" it is then that photography becomes a "have to" do activity and is no longer a "want to" do activity. If for a fact that someone specializes in say macro photography than there may in fact be multiple factors that influence their direction, but foremost it must be something you love to be around and do whether that constitutes a specialist or not. I guess to me the question seems to separate the love of photography for a more matter of fact decision. It could also be asked why does someone want to know why a person chooses to photograph what they do. The decisions of others should absolutely in no way effect what you should, could or want to photograph. Kind of like asking why do you like green instead of brown.

Brad, on a personal level I always try to get as much input as I can get for anything new to me. On a community level, I can't imagine anything more valuable to all of us than the input of the experts we have here.

Your point about "have to" versus "want to" is well taken and is something I've already begun thinking about. I think if it's how a person earns a living there has to be at least a bit of "have to" in it just as there is for almost every way people earn a living, no matter how much we love what we do. But if it's not how we earn our living, I agree that we need to try to stay away from the "have to" feeling. Thank you.

With me it's always been a ricochet or "chain reaction" process- one thing leads to another. I started out taking scientific photos in labs, but that got me interested in the animals in the wild. The animals led me into the habitat....

In the last 20 years we've been shooting pro and that's been a bit different, more driven by opportunity or necessity. At it's "worst" someone walks through the door and asks if we can do a particular type of photography. At it's best we spot an opportunity, practice taking the shots, then show a portfolio to prospective customers.

The most recent example is a casual drive down the Columbia River gorge and the impulse to shoot wind generators. The purely speculative portfolio resulted in contracts with four companies to document installation of some units along with ad photos of their individual specialties and the finished project. I won't claim I'm a windmill specialist yet, but a couple of hours of play resulting in contracts equivalent to a couple of 600 f/4 lenses has pointed me along that path.

Meanwhile another group of construction contractors and engineers saw the work and asked if we worked on the water.

And so it goes.... One interest leads to another, and eventually specialization adds up to diversification.

Interesting question. I started with a specialization (landscapes) and it grew steadily into non-specialization. As my experience grew and my eye improved, I just started seeing more and more interesting opportunities everywhere I went. My access to the Great Outdoors has been heavily restricted since my kids went into college, but this simply drove me to shoot more close to home, the result is my 'specialty' is now things that fit only in the Man & Nature gallery until I can get out to play again!

The neat thing is I have developed the flexibility and the eye to shoot almost anything and still have my imprint on the result.

This is enormously exciting for me and has opened up whole new vistas of subjects. I have turned from 'I only shoot what I like' to 'I wonder what I can do with this...'

Hi Barbara. You always post interesting topics.

As a lifelong backyard birder, my first camera was pointed at birds - I even got an $80 Sears-Roebuck telephoto zoom lens. Birding and photography fed one another. I was avidly into macro -bugs and butterflies- for a good while, too. Getting up before dawn to shoot birds led to shooting landscapes. (The first time I looked through a wide-angle lens, it sure did look odd.) Now I think of myself as a landscape photographer who also shoots birds and whatever else I see. As I have begun to sell photographs, I also have been doing architectural, pets, children, and beach portraits.

I guess my path may be somewhat similar to Jim Sabiston's. Most of my landscapes don't meet the criterion for the Earth Sea and Sky gallery, so I post them in Man and Nature. In fact many don't even qualify for that since they are much more man than nature as I drift into cityscapes. So I don't know if I really have a specialization as much as I'm just enjoying the journey as photography takes me where it will.

Great question, Barbara! I got into art as a little kid, and my first paintings were copies of scenic calendar shots, so ive always been drawn to scenic landscapes. When i got back into 'art' through photography a couple decades later, it was on account of taking photos on numerous hikes and climbs in the mountains, so again my main interest was in capturing those grand landscapes. But the more photography i do, the more interested ive become in broadening my horizons and getting into other types of photography, even non nature photography although i suspect that will always be my main focus.

I had another thought about this question this morning. I'm surprised I didn't think of it right off since it's more in tune with my way of looking at nature photography. Another way of looking at specializing is to concentrate efforts on a place as opposed to a genre. Although I am a devout generalist in nature photography, I specialize in my geographic area. Broadly, that would be the state of California, but I spend most of my time in a much smaller area just north of the Golden Gate. Over the years I continue to develop an increasingly intricate and comprehensive picture of a place.

The International League of Conservation Photographers has a program for concentraing nature photography efforts on a given place, called Rapid Assessment Visual Expeditions, or RAVEs. To me, that's about the coolest thing going on in nature photography right now.

There's a lot of competition out there for most kinds of photography, so I went after the things that are technically harder to do, require unique experience, and expensive specialty gear. I've always enjoyed taking photos at night but over the past four years I've specialized in it, almost to the point of taking the majority of my non-family photos at night. I now have about 9 high powered monolights (not sure exactly how many, LOL) and about seven Nikon SB-28 flash, plus a dozen CyberSync triggers. This gives me the capability to light up some pretty big stuff, or take a lot of small flash units into very remote locations. I feel comfortable at night and enjoy the challenge. There are very, very few people who can do what I do.


Kent in SD

Barbara, my photography interests have been guided by my nature interests. I've always tried to spend most of my free time outdoors. For a long time, I was mostly backpacking and climbing peaks, so I started out with landscape photography. Later, I became a birder, and after a few years lag when I was not doing much photography at all, I turned to bird photography. Now I hardly ever shoot a landscape any more (I keep meaning to...).

Never thought I specialized in any specific area until I went through thousands of slides and just kept the best of the best. The shoe boxes remaining contained 90% florals. Thus the realization that I was best at floral photography emerged.

Specialization? What's that?

I think in the last couple of weeks I've posted in flora, fauna, ess, and maybe macro (not sure about that one). I enjoy all of them, and as a nowhere-close-to-being-pro I have the freedom to not worry about it.

Like most, I love the outdoors and have spent most of my life working for the US Forest Service or BLM. I've always enjoyed the "big picture landscapes" but have found I'm just "ok" in that area and even though I've been a photographer for over 30 years, my landscapes just don't seem to pop like many of the outstanding landscape photographers images do... However, I do find that the photos I select for my portfolio tend to be more "man and nature", florals, waterfalls, nature's details, and abstracts. I love finding abstract patterns both in nature and in the manmade world.

I am a bit like Stan in that I started into art as a kid. Sketching and painting lead me to photography. I got out of photography for a while, but then back into it with a passion when I found NPN several years ago. I still can enjoy painting, but it is a long process that did not work so well with my kids. With photography I can do that with my kids around, or can pick it up and put it down as time allows.

I also fell into my 'specialization' of flora (and some macro) sort of as John Wall mentioned. He mentioned 'efforts on a place' rather than a subject. For me, at this time, with work, young kids, being very busy in my church, etc. I just did not find that I had time to go very far for photography. I take 80%-90% of my shots now in my yard at home. With the variety of flowers that one can buy and plant at nurseries and garden centers, I have lots of subjects available. Different blooms of a single variety can even provide different opportunities.

Last but not least was our (my wife and my) decision to buy a macro lens for me several years ago as a 'graduation' present when I finished my MBA. Getting a long macro (180 mm) made a ton of difference for me in what I was able to shoot - and how easy it was.

I love what I shoot. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

Nathan