Your Access is Everything
When you get to know a subject intimately, like one where you live, you learn what moments are special and interesting better than anyone parachuting into your area ever will. Photos and text by: Annalise Kaylor
I’ve moved across the country a few times in my adult life. Today I sit surrounded by boxes and “moving zones,” with all the things going into a moving pod in one place, things that go into our travel trailer in another, and things we need for the two workshops we need to run in the third zone. In less than a week, Jared and I are moving out of our townhouse on the coast of North Carolina and moving to Alaska.
Go big or go home, right?
One of the major reasons we’re uprooting our lives and moving thousands of miles away is access to the wildlife we love to photograph, access to the wildlife we have yet to photograph and access to new stories and ideas. While we love traveling, being on the road most of the year is exhausting and we decided that we wanted to simplify things as much as possible for 2023 onward.
We have three workshops we now run in Alaska and we quickly realized that moving there and flying out of Alaska to the few places we go the rest of the year would be easier. Plus, it means that we have time to explore the rest of the state without making additional special trips.
The concept of access has come up during portfolio reviews as of late. Jared has a story he tells (and he’s told me I can share on his behalf here) about a chance encounter with legendary photographer Nick Nichols.
It was years ago when Jared was working as a kayak guide and just building his wildlife photography business. As he was coming in with kayaks for the day, Jared saw a photo shoot for clothing happening on a nearby dock. Turns out, it was a shoot for National Geographic. A chance encounter lead to Jared sitting on the dock, Corona in hand, having a conversation with Nick at the end of the shoot.
Nick had some advice for Jared and his wildlife work. He told Jared that the best advice he could give anyone wanting to make money with wildlife photography is to specialize in whatever is in your own backyard. Whatever you have the most access to day in and day out. Nick told Jared to go out and photograph that subject in his area over and over and over again until he cannot possibly think of a new way to photograph that subject again. Then delete everything and start over with that subject again. Work it. Make it even better. See it for the first time.
This is how Nick himself broke into National Geographic, eventually even becoming their editor-at-large until 2015. He specialized in photography inside the caves near his home in Alabama and eventually, that specialty is was helped him break into the elite and catapulted him into the international spotlight.
Jared took that advice to heart and began focusing on the wild Banker horses near his home in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I think it’s fair to say that Jared’s work with these horses is probably some of his most well-known work.
Everyone has something worth studying and photographing near their homes. We get caught up in the notion that everything worth photographing requires special trips with special gear and incredible investments of time and money. While there is something to be said about that, especially if you have a specific subject or place you love, there are a lot of opportunities wherever you live.
We recently spoke with one member who lives right in New York City and showed us absolutely beautiful photographs of warblers and songbirds in Central Park. As a Master Birder for Audubon myself, I was green with envy. There is a reason we birders say we have “warbler neck” during migration. Seeing his gorgeous images of warblers at eye level was truly incredible; they’re just so difficult to achieve without dedication to your craft.
Even better, when we looked at Getty for some of these images, there was essentially ZERO competition for these subjects. Unlike photos of bald eagles, which range into the tens of thousands, when I searched for a “horned lark,” Getty had only 50 photos available. When it comes to stock photography, I would much rather have one of the best photos in a sea of 50 than a photo that will never be found in the sea of tens of thousands. Similarly, when I looked at “Carolina wren,” a common bird (and the loudest of the passerines in North America) where I live, only 121 images in Getty and they were all quite terrible to boot.
I concede that the demand for subjects like bald eagles is much higher than the demand for a horned lark, but my point is that the more common species get next to zero love over the megafauna of the world. I can’t recommend enough going to Getty or the stock photo site of your choice and searching for the birds and animals that are the most common and underappreciated where you live.
Another example comes from a photographer we spoke with last week. She lives in a place with a marsh, has a ground blind set up, and recently bought a floating blind for getting in the water. She doesn’t even have to leave her property to have access to some incredible photography opportunities.
If you aren’t sure where to start with stock and you generally stay in the same area, this is an excellent place to start. Working with what you have and what you have access to is one of the best ways to break into the business. What’s common for you will be uncommon for someone else and vice versa. Don’t limit your thinking to what garners love on social media or the aspirational-only; it’s almost never the photography that actually sells.
Look for the key things that take common subjects to new levels - birds feeding nestlings, flying out of a cavity, preening on a branch, for example. A robin pulling a worm from the ground. A marten sitting in a tree. Birds in mid-song, squirrels in mid-jump. All of these tiny little moments of common behavior are comprised of gold in the stock world. And if you don’t believe me, search on Getty, or the stock photo site of your choosing, and see for yourselves. The stock photo world is your oyster.