You Can’t Be A Specialist Photographer in Australia

Yep, you heard it right. Specialist photographers in Australia are a dying breed.

Sure there’s the odd full time landscape photographer or even wedding photographer, but really you have to stop and smell the roses if you’re a new photographer entering the industry.

The photography game is certainly changing in Australia. Cameras are getting cheaper with much better technology making them irresistible for new starters. So, no more can you say ‘I only shoot landscapes’. You must master the genres and grab every opportunity you can get.

Here’s why: Australia is a small niche market that doesn’t have the client base to support your preferred photography genre. If you’re in business here, you’re bound to run into some financial trouble along the way if you don’t take everything that comes your way. By the time you add up the amount you spent on gear, your overheads and business taxes there’s not a lot to play with. I’ve seen it happen to many photographers around me over the years. Hey, I even heard it this week from a friend in the industry.

America is a photographers dream, there’s enough people there to support you no matter what style of photography you do. Whether it’s portraits, landscapes, fashion, products or even pets, photographers can own their market and capitalise on the geographical people power. Here in Australia, it’s a quite different.

Sure, as I said before there’s a small number of photographers who master their photography domain down under, and hats off to them. They’ve done a stirling job, but I can tell you something, many of these photographers are ‘more experienced’ and have been battling away in this industry for decades… no wonder they’re on top. Put that in contrast to the hundreds wanting to make a break…. no wonder so many photographers are turning to social media just ‘to make it’.

Without going into too much more detail on the subject I want to challenge you – in the comments below name five Australian photographers in different speciality genres who are successful and work full time, then name five American ones. Now, I bet the Australian ones are much harder to come up with than the American ones? Am I right?