Timothy Armes' blog

Food photography presents many small problems that keep the grey matter on its toes. Experimenting with new techniques and keeping them fresh help keep the mind open and aware during all photos shoots.

Should a professional photographer limit his or her photography to just one or two specialist areas, or is it better to be a generalist?

I know a local photographer who has had a very successful career as a generalist. He’s been successful for two reasons: firstly, he’s a very good generalist photographer who is able to adapt himself easily and secondly, he runs his business through a shop that is easily accessible to the general public. He’s also an extremely likable and chatty character who inspires confidence and who has gained an excellent reputation in the local area.

The ability to work with confidence in interior environments is critical to my professional work. Although my images usually involve people, I still need to be able to light the environment appropriately.

Nevertheless, as a general rule I believe that most businesses are far more likely to shine when they do one thing exceedingly well rather than many things reasonably well. Restaurants are an excellent example of this principle; our expectations are far higher of restaurants that offers one type of food. A restaurant that offers everything from an Indian curry to a Sunday roast may be okay – but it’ll never be exceptional.

If your web site has portfolios for weddings, still life, studio, architecture and fashion then what sort of message are you giving to your potential clients? Unless your work is undeniably top-notch across the board¹  you’ll be sending a confusing one at best, and an amateurish one at worse. It’s important to ask yourself if you’ll be taken seriously.

Being confortable in the studio is also important to me. Maintaining the skill set required to tackle more challenging materials such as glassware opens up a world of possibilities for my work - especially when it comes to compositiing images...

Despite this I do actually believe that a great specialist photographer should also be a good generalist. It’s important to vary photographic experiences in order to maintain and attain skills and techniques. Having a good repertoire of skills to call upon is essential, and calling upon them with the confidence that only comes through regular practice will undoubtedly have a positive effect on ones specialist photography, allowing the photographer to constantly advance and avoid creative or technical stagnation. For this reason it’s very important for me, personally, to have personal projects that I undertake for no other reason that personal satisfaction and growth.

Can the need to maintain a specialised professional portfolio be reconciled with the more eclectic work that I’ve just mentioned? Should a photographer avoid showing his or her work outside of the specialist area?

The answers to these questions are “yes” and “probably not”.  Personal work often provides a view into the photographer’s soul that isn’t visible through the commercial work; it would be a shame to hide this, and very possibly counter productive.  However, the distinction should be very clear and the professional portfolio itself should be focussed and unambiguous so that it sends a clear message to clients. Other work should be presented separately – there are several ways of acheiving this:

• Separate commercial and personal work on your site.
• Place non-specialist work into a blog or other non-formal presentation that can’t be confused with the professional portfolio.
• Place personal work onto a totally separate site.

Macro photography isn't my speciality, but it has been useful to me in the past. Maintaing this skill is not only personally rewarding, it can be useful at the most unexpected times..

My own site has evolved through experience and with the benefit of advice kindly shared other professionals² – I hope that this post will do the same for some of you….

1. If you really excel at several forms of photography then it’s probably worth having a separate site for each one. [↩]
2. I attained a wealth of great advice from Chase Jarvis during a workshop for pro-photographers – thanks Chase! [↩]

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 12th, 2009 at 9:09 pm and is filed under Business Practises, Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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