The great debate be a generalist or find a niche
What’s the greatest asset a photographer can have right now? A highly trained eye and remarkable expertise for creating standout images in a specific genre, or the ability to do great work for briefs that, increasingly, require images to be used across a multiplicity of media forms for a range of uses?
Melbourne food photographer, Brent Parker Jones explains the value of specialists with a role-playing game. You: You live and breathe furniture and interior design. Me: Not so much. We: Both have to shoot this new restaurant. You: As you walk in, your eye goes wild at the use of timber panels and concrete. “So yesterday,” you think. But then you see those chairs that line the entrance. Each one is a rare find but, nope, here they are. That floats your boat, and you know your client knows that you know this is important as well. Me: I walk right past the chairs thinking, “Oh, nice light. I might shoot there later,” and go straight to the kitchen, introduce myself to the executive chef (who, I know, once did time on a line in a two-Michelin-star restaurant). I grab a coffee and flip out over black morel mushrooms, still attached to their spore block. I know that the chef must
