Do you know what the best part about being an aspiring photographer is? You get to explore virtually every photography niche there is without anything holding you back! Armed with your trusty camera and newfound passion for photography coursing through your veins, you can dare to dream big and try your hand at all sorts of compelling photography niches.
As you go from one niche to another, you will be able to amass invaluable experience that will help you go a long way in making a career in photography. You will get to discover the tricks and tips specific to each photography genre, such as pet, fashion, sports, landscape, and event photography. It will help you hone your skills, and if you’re lucky, you might even be able to discover your true calling hidden among the niches you try!
So, let’s take a look at some interesting photography niches that you must try to master!
Contents
16 Fun Photography Niches You Must Try
Even though it helps to be an expert in a particular photography niche, since you can cash in on your expertise, it doesn’t hurt to be a jack of all trades either while you work toward your specialty. Here are some popular and fun photography niches that you must try while figuring out your passion:
1) Portrait Photography
Portrait photography is a popular photography style that anyone can practice with a high-quality smartphone camera anywhere in the world. The beauty and essence of portrait photography are that it allows you to capture your subject’s personality via specific poses, close-ups, and genuine expressions.
If you want to capture compelling portraits, highlight your subject’s best features by playing with distance, angle, focus, lighting, and shadows. As a beginner, you can start by capturing portraits of your family members and friends. Professionally, portrait photographers take professional headshots for aspiring actors and models, graduation pictures, family portraits, supermodel or celebrity portraits at magazine shoots, and more.
Click here for some handy portrait photography tips! (Coming Soon)
2) Landscape Photography
Landscape photography is the ideal photography niche for anyone who loves to travel. Contrary to popular belief, this photography genre isn’t limited to horizontal pictures. Many photographers prefer taking vertical shots of tall mountains and trees to enhance their loftiness. Landscape photographers work throughout the day and night to capture a landscape in its natural beauty.
In fact, many photographers prefer nighttime landscape photography as it allows them to take on a challenge and think creatively to take striking pictures without the aid of sunlight. During the day, landscape photography relies heavily on the use of natural light and shadows that create some breathtaking photography opportunities. Many photographers use drones to capture a bird’s eye view of landscapes, which adds more depth to the shots.
3) Travel Photography
Travel photography is an all-encompassing photography niche that entails a wide array of photography sub-genres, such as landscape photography, portraiture, street photography, food photography, wildlife photography, architecture photography, and more. It includes pictures that you take while traveling. You can experiment with all of these different styles of photography as you explore new places and meet new people.
4) Food Photography
Food photography used to be one of the most unique photography niches a decade ago. However, today, the widespread popularity of social media and the global phenomenon of taking pretty pictures of your food and uploading them on social media has made food photography a widely popular photography specialty.
If you want to take up food photography as a professional, you can practice with a high-quality camera, the correct white balance, and lighting to get accurate colors. You can also increase your image saturation in post-processing to enhance the appeal of your food. Food photographers typically work with restaurants, cafés, and start-ups looking to promote their food online. They also work for magazines and websites with food-related content.
5) Still-Life Photography
Still-life photography entails taking photos of inanimate objects. It has a popular sub-genre known as product photography that advertising agencies use to have branded items photographed for billboards, digital platforms, magazines, and catalogs. The key to taking arresting still-life photos lies in utilizing excellent lighting. In product photography, many professional photographers use a softbox to eliminate harsh shadows while illuminating the product from all flattering angles.
6) Sports Photography
Sports photography is a professional photography niche that entails many high-speed shots of athletes. Sports photographers typically invest in heavy and long lenses that they can zoom in to where the action is taking place. These lenses are designed to shoot at fast shutter speeds without resulting in underexposed images. If you want to give sports photography a try, boost the ISO, to use faster shutter speeds and experiment with different perspectives and angles.
7) Macro Photography
Macro photography is all about seeking beauty in the finer details. It entails capturing subjects and objects to make them appear much bigger than they actually are. To capture some breathtaking macro shots, you can use a macro lens with a DSLR. The ideal subjects for macro photography include bugs, flowers, water droplets, feathers, grass, glass shards, leaves, ice crystals, and more.
Here are some useful macro photography tips for you! (Coming Soon)
8) Wildlife Photography
Wildlife photography is inarguably one of the most rewarding, challenging, and unique photography niches. It enables you to push your creative boundaries and step out of your comfort zone to capture wild animals in their natural habitat without intruding on their privacy. It also demands the use of high-quality cameras and accompanying gear.
The truth is that not everyone can become a wildlife photographer. It requires patience, attention to detail, a keen understanding of and respect for wild animals, adventurous spirit, adaptability to adjust to challenging conditions, and the courage to venture into the wild, which is often in remote and dangerous parts of the world. However, if you are keen on becoming a wildlife photographer, invest in long lenses and find a professional to shadow to learn everything you need to know about this niche.
9) Event Photography
Event photography is a popular photography genre that includes capturing all sorts of events, such as weddings, engagements, concerts, birthdays, corporate meetings, and more. It involves a mix of photography techniques and sub-genres as you are required to take pictures of the people attending the event, candid moments, the event venue, food, decor, and more.
The key to becoming a successful event photographer is to weave a compelling story with the pictures you capture. It’s especially true for wedding photography. You need to imbue your pictures with the joy that your subjects were feeling at the time of the event. It involves making your subjects feel at ease in front of the camera so that they can let go of their inhibitions and you can capture their authentic selves on camera.
Click here to discover some game-changing event photography tips! (Coming Soon)
10) Pet Photography
Pet photography is inarguably the most amusing photography niche out there. It follows more or less the same principles and techniques used in portrait photography, except for the fact that you can’t ask your pets or expect them to stay still or pose a certain way for your pictures!
At the same time, with pet photography, you don’t have to worry about making your subjects look good. Instead, you can experiment with unique techniques and angles, such as shooting up-close with a wide-angle lens. You can also capture sleeping pets or try to take portraits of pets by grabbing their attention with a toy or their favorite food from behind the camera.
Take memorable photos of your pets with these easy-to-follow tips! (Coming Soon)
11) Newborn Photography
Newborn or baby photography is equally, if not more, joyous than pet photography as it offers you the opportunity to spend time with adorable little babies and capture their “aw-worthy” moments on your camera. However, this photography genre comes with its unique challenges, including the fact that newborns are sensitive to light, exceptionally fragile, and moody. It means that you will have to invest in the right gear and make use of available lighting to not disturb the baby. Also, you will have to ensure that the surroundings and temperature are ideal and comfortable for the newborn.
12) Fashion Photography
Fashion photography is a creative photography niche that allows you to explore your artistic side. It’s also a lucrative niche as it has a high demand in the marketing and advertising industries. Fashion photography entails taking artistic, attractive pictures of celebrities and supermodels in high-end fashion clothes, accessories, and shoes.
If you want to break into the world of fashion photography, you will have to master the art of dealing with people and making them pose the way you want to accentuate the artistic and technical sides of your photos. Since fashion photography is all about showcasing glamorous outfits, you will have to take a lot of full-body shots.
At times, it also involves portrait shots to feature accessories and cash in the beauty of the celebrity being captured. Depending on the clothing style, theme, and scope of the collection, fashion photography can take you anywhere – from small studios with artificial lighting to modeling runways to some truly breathtaking outdoor locales.
Click here to learn more about fashion photography! (Coming Soon)
13) Street Photography
Street photography is a particularly appealing niche for anyone who enjoys artistic freedom and taking beautiful candid shots in a busy street. It’s a unique photography niche that tries to document human emotions and captures unplanned events as they unfold without any central theme. It relies heavily on the idea that the human connection can surpass physical and cultural boundaries.
Usual subjects of street photography include children, street vendors, street food, graffiti artworks, sidewalks, concrete pathways, alleyways, etc. You can use different types of cameras and lenses to capture street photos that highlight the mundane beauty of everyday life. Street photography offers you the convenience of shooting on the go.
Learn how to capture stunning street photos here! (Coming Soon)
14) Documentary Photography
Documentary photography entails war photos and pictures that convey a historical significance as they document the everyday realities of life. Documentary photographers are usually tied with the press and are photojournalists who cover political and social issues via pictures.
They capture the raw emotions of people undergoing real-life challenges and significant political changes. Documentary images have a universal appeal as they evoke a sense of empathy and unification and urge you to get involved in the political and make it personal.
15) Architectural Photography
If you’re looking for a photography niche that offers a constant stream of work projects, you might want to explore architecture photography. It entails photographing the exterior and interior of compelling buildings and structures within broader cityscapes to highlight the skills, techniques, and designs used by architects.
Architectural photography demands a compelling blend of artistic and technical skills and knowledge of proper composition and lighting. If you’re serious about becoming an architectural photographer, you will need to invest in some high-quality gear, such as a sturdy tripod, a bubble level, a tilt-shift lens, and a panorama head.
Discover some helpful architectural photography tips here! (Coming Soon)
16) Long Exposure Photography
Long exposure photography entails making use of your camera’s technical abilities to hold the shutter for a longer time, allowing you to capture surreal images of scenes that you can’t explore with the naked eye.
This unique photography genre is widely used in nighttime photography and astrophotography to take stunning photos of light streaks, starburst, and striking gradients in what might appear to be a dull black sky to the naked eye. You can also use long exposure photography during the daytime to capture frothy rivers and velvety smooth lakes.
Since long exposure photography demands the use of long shutter speeds, you will need to upgrade your photography gear and invest in a high-quality tripod, a camera with good low-light performance, and a remote shutter release. You will also need to hone your manual photography skills.
The Bottom Line
As a novice photographer who has yet to discover their photography forte, you must try to explore as many photography niches as you can to find the one that comes most naturally to you. Even if you can’t decide on one genre, experimenting with so many niches will enable you to learn so many interesting, compelling, and creatively challenging aspects of photography, helping you hone your skills and widen your horizons. It will bring you that much closer to becoming a professional photographer with enviable photography expertise and open new doors for you to conquer the limitless world of photography!
Good luck!
Leave a Reply