Finding a Profitable Niche
As a professional group, photographers move in a heard, they copy each other to the letter. The ultimate in copying each other is the huge number of photographers, by the thousands, that go to Yosemite to take the same photos as Ansel Adams. They go as far as going on the same date and at the same time in the, useless, hope that they will be able to duplicate Adams' fantastic work. The problem with these copycats is that they fail to realize that even with the same light, the same place ,and the same exposure they will never get the same prints as Ansel Adams. Ansel Adams' genius was in the darkroom, he was can easily be argued the best printer ever.
Everybody, and their dog, tells you that you should find a niche and be unique. So when some photographer does something really unique, we should notice and we may learn something. Vanessa Taylor takes photos of horses. What's so special?
These are photos of Polo matches. She covers most of the summer season matches.
- She sells the full coverage of the season, with a printed book for that specific customer. She will follow that team from match to match…
- The book has a run of one. It's unique, no duplicate. Each book has around 100 photos and is concentrated on the horses of that specific customer.
- Prices start at around $5,000 per book.
- She also sell individual prints to people that can't/won't order a book.
How many customers can she get at these prices? Before the recession? A dozen plus, now…
The beauty of the system is that the coverage is “almost the same” no matter how many clients, it's “just” the individual book that is the one off.