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Engagement > Wedding > Maternity > Family

As a photographer I would like to find my niche. What I would love to focus on is with couples getting engaged. To then photograph their wedding. After that usually comes the pictures of a family, whether that means just the couple as husband and wife, or Dad, Mom, and baby.

I want to photograph a couple's love story from beginning to continuation. I want to be the family's photographer for milestones and special occasions. Is that considered a niche?

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    \$\begingroup\$ It might be niche, but it's also going to be low-profit. How are you going to sign them up & hold them to it? How many engagements lead to marriage & children? How many of those successes stay around the same area they started? How long before you can publish your unique portfolio as advertising to attract further customers… a decade? \$\endgroup\$
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Mar 9, 2022 at 18:46
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    \$\begingroup\$ Coming back to the question itself: why do you care if it's considered a niche or not? \$\endgroup\$
    – Philip Kendall ♦
    Commented Mar 9, 2022 at 18:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ You should also consider that these require very different sets of photographic skills that individually can take a lifetime to master. For Engagement pictures, you're usually talking about a faux photojournalistic style, weddings are events, maternity is usually tightly controlled studio shooting and family is a mixed bag, but baby portraits are an industry unto themselves for a reason. Not saying it can't be done, but rather you need to be prepared for many years of very hard work to be proficient at all four. \$\endgroup\$
    – LightBender
    Commented Mar 10, 2022 at 17:26

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It’s not so much a niche.

It is more repeat business with established clients. Long term relationships are great, and you might be able to photograph a child’s first day of school, yearly holiday cards, the children’s wedding, the grandkids and so forth.

But…although engagement pictures and a wedding are related, they are a very different business from family photography.

A lot of people will open their wallets for wedding pictures because they are already spending money.

Far fewer will pay for pictures during pregnancy and family events. Most people take pictures of those themselves rather than hire a professional for formal portraits.

It’s not that a photographer can’t do both in theory. It is more that client development and scheduling are so different. Good wedding photographers know caterers and florists and venues. They build networks of people in the wedding industry to find leads and solve problems when things go wrong on the big day.

A portrait photographer has an entirely different business model and networks.

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It's a niche in the sense that not many photographers offer this as a package. Usually people book single shoots.

You could add a sort of pay-as-you-go scheme, discounts when you book follow-up shoots, a yearly reminder, added value in a story-overview and a consistent style... things that tie separate shoots into a story. Nice idea.

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