ASP Photographer Kirstin Scholtz Interview

There’s a brief interview with ASP photographer Kirstin Sholtz on surfcareers.com, if you follow the WCT at all you will have seen plenty of her photo’s already but there’s a gallery of some highlights on the page to have a browse of too.

Link: http://surfcareers.com/blog/kirsten-scholtz-asp-photographer/

pipe3515reef10kirstin_w_940_wide_carousel

Pipeline, Photo: Kirstin Scholtz

Obviously the focus is on her career within surfing, which makes a nice change from most interviews which are usually promoting something in particular or have a more general theme with no particular focus.

Here’s the most interesting exchange for me:

What advice would you give to up and coming photographers?
Find your niche in photography whether its water, portraiture, fashion, women’s surfing etc. and own that niche. There are so many surf photographers out there so you need to be the leader in at least one aspect of surf photography, to set yourself apart from the rest.

I think for someone looking to make a living out of surf photography it makes sense to try and specialise, when you read Jim Russi’s book, Flying Through The Clouds it’s clear that his niche was shooting women surfers enjoying the more fun, social, side of the sport and this made his partnership with Roxy work especially well, and I’ve written in the past about Scott Aichner’s mastery of the fisheye shot and Chris Burkards keen eye for pulled back line-ups.

But for every great example of a photographer who owns their niche, there’s three others who seem to span several, even the example shots in the gallery on the page show off several different types of photography that Kirstin is at the top of the game in herself, if you have a look at any of the surf photographers websites in this dedicated post you’re guaranteed to see several genres of photography on display.

The top tip I took from the interview is to find a mentor, this theme pops up again and again when I read about surf photographers, if you can study under the tutelage of an established pro it’s going to accelerate your learning massively and open doors for you at the same time.

So have a read, especially if you aspire to be a professional one day, because out of all the full time photographers I’ve read interviews with it looks like she’s got one of the best gigs going.


Posted

in

,

by

Tags:

Comments

One response to “ASP Photographer Kirstin Scholtz Interview”

  1. […] you’ve been keeping up with the posts recently you will of seen the Kirstin Scholtz interview with surfcareers.com, which focused on her career in surf photography, well Stab Mag have just put out an interview with […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *