"Drilling Down" - Diversity in Photography

By Skip Cohen

It's Marketing Monday, and while I'm running low on new suggestions to help make 2026 one of your very best years in business, I'm not done yet! It's July, and for many of you, business has slowed down a little. So, before the calendar pages turn and we're into fall and holiday seasonality, it's a great time to think about diversity.

​The challenge so many of you face is too much on your website that's not your strongest suit. No matter how technically good you are, you can't do it all without sacrificing quality somewhere along the line. You need to focus on your core specialty and then spin off into related areas of expertise.

Here's a perfect example: A lot of you have an interest in commercial work, but let's say your core business is wedding photography. The confusion arises when different people view your site. A rep at an ad agency, searching for a photographer for a specific client, will move on if they come into your website looking at wedding albums. In the same respect, Mom or a bride isn't interested in your commercial work - they want to see your skills as a wedding photographer.

The same applies to photographers who want to sell fine art images, landscapes, etc., but their core business is family portraiture. The target audience gets confused and moves on to someone whose work is more in line with their needs.

Here are some easy to remember suggestions:
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• Keep building your skill set so you can handle most of your clients' needs. Keep learning how to do EVERYTHING. For example, a wedding photographer who learns more about macro is likely to be more creative when it comes to ring shots, the detail in the wedding gown, and the flowers.
• Don't show everything you've ever shot! Just because your skill set is diverse doesn't mean you need to show everything you can do on your website. Keep your galleries relatable. For example, under the people umbrella are weddings, maternity, babies, children, family, and seniors. They all fit together and are logical spokes off a specific core specialty.
• Fine art and commercial photography have different buyers and will be better served if you either have a completely separate site or a landing page that directs visitors to two different destinations. Personally, I'm a fan of different websites.
• If you insist on showing a different specialty that doesn't seem to fit your core business, do so as a tab under "Personal Work" or as a facsimile. There's nothing wrong with diversity until it confuses your target audience. You can also use social media, including your blog, for occasional posts about other types of photography.
• Diversity in capture and post-processing is important to share. My issue is with the specialties you want to represent, not with your technique. Diversity in your technique is essential to show. Including black-and-white images, special effects, albums with double-page spreads, framing and printing techniques, just to name a few, are all necessary to share.

And last on the list - remember that what you show is what you want to sell. Years ago, I was looking at a good buddy's website, and in the middle of his core business galleries, he had a dozen mediocre images from a wedding he once photographed. When I asked why, he responded, "I've only shot one wedding, but I want people to know I can do it!"  The answer was, "NO, you don't!" That didn't mean he couldn't handle the request if one of his regular clients asked, only that he shouldn't show weddings in his main "inventory" of services/skills.

Shakespeare said it best, "To thine own self be true!" Stay true to your core specialty and diversify your website with logically connected specialties.