How I Found My Niche in Professional Photography
I’m Alastair Philip Wiper, a British photographer based in Copenhagen and working worldwide. From the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, to giant shipyards in South Korea and radio observatories in Peru, I work with the weird and wonderful subjects of industry, science, architecture. Finding a niche has been very important for my career, so I’m going to share a bit about how I went about it.
Where it started
I began taking photos while I was working as a graphic designer for a clothing company in Copenhagen, in around 2006. My dad gave me a Nikon D80 for my 27th birthday, and it just so happened that there was no house photographer at the company I was working for. Pretty soon I was shooting everything for them: catalogues, fashion, catwalks in Paris. The mix of technical know-how and creativity was right up my street – I just loved it.
I also started buying cheap old film cameras and built a black and white darkroom in my apartment. Although I rarely shoot on film today, it taught me a hell of a lot back then. I also started up a blog where I tried to put up one picture a day (this was pre-Instagram!) and had my first solo exhibition in 2010, called “Lonely Fruit” – all black and white prints I made in my darkroom.
It was around this time I decided that I wanted to try and make a living out of photography. The problem was, I didn’t know how to do it. I had just had a child, and I wanted a career that had a future for me and my family. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would go about it.
Then one day I had a lightbulb moment. I stumbled across the work of a couple of old photographers that were shooting big industry back in the 1950s and 1960s – Wolfgang Sievers and Maurice Bloomfield. I was blown away by their pictures of huge oil refineries and factories, and suddenly a whole new world opened up to me. I knew I wanted to take pictures of these kinds of things, and I wanted to get paid well by clients with big budgets to do it.
Making the decision
From that moment on, I devoted everything to my new goal. I had no portfolio in this kind of photography, so I had to build one. I went down to part-time hours at the clothing company, started trying to get into any kind of industrial or scientific facility I could, and soon discovered it wasn’t easy. I was calling car companies and asking if I could get into their production plants, and they were just laughing at me.
But in the end, I got a few breaks. I photographed a small offset printing company that was owned by a friend of a friend of the family and I also managed to talk my way into CERN in Switzerland. Some of my favourite images were taken during that period of building my portfolio.
After experimenting a little, I soon discovered how I liked to photograph these things, my “style”. I didn’t over think it, it was just obvious to me when I walked in to the room how I wanted to photograph something, where I need to be, what the angle should be.
An old photographer once said to me that photographing should feel easy – if it feels forced, or difficult, something is wrong and you should change your approach. That doesn’t mean not making an effort to get the shot, but that it should “feel” right. I don’t know if that is good advice for everyone, but I stick by it and have found it has helped me get some of my best shots.
At the end of 2012 I had enough material to launch my website and so I printed a portfolio and hit the phones. I tried to contact anyone I could to show them my work – companies, magazines, graphic designers, advertising agencies. It was hard. I did not enjoy it. But, I had some successes – I arranged meetings with magazines such as Wired and Wallpaper, and eventually started getting commissions.
Fascination
Alongside this, I gradually became increasingly fascinated by my subject matter. I had never been particularly interested in science and technology as a child, but being allowed to go behind the scenes and see these amazing things, see how people came up with crazy solutions to answer questions and solve problems – I felt like the luckiest person in the world. The photography was secondary by that point, it was the subject matter that I was in love with.
That has been the key for me, and I believe that it is the key for any successful photographer: you must be fascinated by the things you take photos of. Being interested in “photography” alone will not make you a good photographer, but being truly interested in your subject will.
I used to go on holiday and wonder round with my camera, always on the look-out for something to photograph, kicking myself when I missed the clichéd shot of the old man or the amazing view. These days I don’t even bring a proper camera on holiday with me, and I enjoy my holiday a lot more. Focusing on a narrow subject has meant that I can really explore that subject and my photography at the same time, and it has been very liberating. I would recommend to anybody wanting to improve their photography to find a subject that they are interested in, then obsess over it, and almost forget about taking photos of other things.
Gear
I’ve always found it interesting to learn what equipment photographers I admire use and why, so here is how I do it. When I am doing commercial shoots and have the luxury of assistants and time to work on specific shots, I use a variety of cameras, tilt-shift and prime lenses, lights, and whatever else I need to get the specific shot. But most of the time when I am shooting factories or scientific facilities, I work alone, and I have a massive time pressure. I hate carrying too much gear, I hate changing lenses, and I hate wasting time thinking about which lens or other price of equipment I should use for a shot.
I want my process to be as simple as possible so that I can concentrate on the shot and not worry about anything else at all. So, 90% of my shots are taken on a Nikon D810, with an Nikkor 24–70mm f/2.8, a tripod and a wireless shutter release. The D810 is just extremely reliable – it never lets me down, and the high resolution really suits my style of photography, which often includes a lot of detail. The 24-70mm covers almost every situation that I am in, and the trade-off in quality between using a zoom and a prime is a no-brainer for me. That lens is great quality, and without it I would simply miss a lot of shots while I was fiddling around changing prime lenses.
I also carry an Nikkor 70–200mm f/4G VR (I rarely shoot under f/4, and prefer the light weight/size of the f/4 vs the f/2.8), but it only comes out of the bag every now and then as I rarely need to shoot anything from a large distance. Finally, I sometimes use the 105mm f/2.8D AF Micro NIKKOR for macro work, which comes in very handy when I want to get a shot of something very small. I work mostly with available light.
The world will always need professional photographers
I often get asked if I can make a living doing what I do, and if there is a place in the world for professionals now that everyone has a smartphone. It is true the industry has changed drastically in the last 15 years, but just because a lot more people have the ability to take photos doesn’t mean that the profession has become obsolete.
In fact it means we live in a world of short attention spans, where good visual communication is more important than ever – and if you think that top companies that spend millions of dollars on advertising campaigns are going to try and save a few bucks by hiring some guy with a phone, you’re living on another planet.
I love what I do, I earn a good living. But I’m not somebody that likes to rest on their laurels, I am constantly looking for new challenges – so I find it hard to imagine myself doing exactly the same thing in 20 years’ time. I don’t know what I will be doing, but that is the fun part. And for now, I wouldn’t swap it for anything.
Full disclosureAlastair Philip Wiper collaborates with Nikon on projects, but PetaPixel was not sponsored for this post in any way.
