How to find your Photography Niche

How I found out more about myself as a Photographer and how you can too.

When I started photography, I must have been around 7–8. I would run around the house, taking terrible photos of the most random things and thinking I was the best photographer. My dad was a food photographer which is how I got started. He was the one who gave me my first camera. A Canon Rebel. Obviously wasn’t the fanciest of cameras, but I loved it and used it for at least over five years. He taught me the basics, showed me what I was doing right and wrong and today, he is still and will always be my biggest critic.

Today, I consider myself a portrait photographer who is looking into getting more involved in Fashion and Wedding photography. In all honesty, I haven’t tried everything (as badly as I want to). Now, I could make excuses and tell you why and what I need to do, but it’ll be a better use of my time and yours to tell you how I got into portrait photography to show you how you can find out your photography niche.

First, I brought my camera everywhere. Park, school, the mall even. I took pictures of everything and would see what I enjoyed taking photos of the most. Midway through high school, I found out more about what I like shooting and what I didn’t like. For me, I found that I really enjoyed taking photos of my friends and people, going into the forest and taking detailed photos of nature and any kinds of animals or incests that I could find. What I found boring was taking photos of inanimate objects such as books, pencils, pretty much anything that didn’t move. I also found that, while I love taking photos of nature, I am not the biggest fan of landscape photography. This was where I started.

When it came to developing my skills, I didn’t go to any school for photography, I used some of the best recourses online, YouTube and Instagram. On YouTube, I would watch many videos from Peter McKinnon, Sawyer Hartman and Brandon Woelfel who’s photography style I absolutely fell in love with. When it comes to Instagram, that was my biggest source of inspiration to create and how to use different background and angles effectively. By using what I had, I was able to define a workflow for myself, learn how to edit and take photos with better composition. Most importantly, I went back to shooting things that I did…