Can Diversification be Mastered?

This week I’ve been thinking about diversification in the business sense. Do I want to diverse, is it necessary and how it could be a good thing.

So far, in the short life of Nathan Millar Photography, I’ve done portraits for family and for LinkedIn profiles. Before I began, my passion was centred fairly exclusively to landscape/outdoor/adventure photography yet so far that looks to be the last part to get going. Did I expect this? Yes, I think I did. What I didn’t expect is that I’ve enjoyed how the diverse roles have forced me to enhance my process of planning and taking photos; the ways it has encouraged me to think about the story, the connection between subject and viewer. Not that I’ve instantly become an expert in just a couple of shoots, but it’s opened a whole new world. Why did I begin to diversify? Simply, for the money. I’m a full time photographer, I need income, and at present I’ll take that from wherever it comes. Give me an opportunity to use my camera and I’ll be there.

Right, if this issuing to be a good news sandwich then we need some bad meat in the middle - not like a steak or ham, more like grilled caterpillars, and in this case the grilled caterpillars of diversification is the effect it has on the development of existing skills. As I said, I’ve been learning how to apply my skills with a camera to varying disciplines and scenarios, new strings constantly being added to my bow in the way of that classic analogy. Another classic is the saying, “A jack of all trades is a master of none”, but did you know that originally this was followed by, “Oftentimes better than a master of one.” Suddenly the whole concept is flipped.

And so the top slice of bready goodness is added to the sandwich. Even if the long term goal isn’t to be applying my skills to a variety of disciplines, in the short term it probably won’t hurt. Even from what I’ve already done, I’ve learnt things which can be added to future landscape and adventure shoots as much as to a shoot for a LinkedIn profile.

There comes the unsubtle segue to sharing with you a set of pictures I recently took for a LinkedIn profile. They were for Mike, an engineer and one of my oldest friends (yes it’s ok to take pictures of friends and treat them as clients - more on that later I’m sure). During this shoot there were at least two moments where I recognised learning something, made all the more easier by dealing with a friend. Feel free to get in touch if you’d like some pictures for yourself…the contact page is just there on my website.