In less than two weeks, the province of Ontario will have municipal elections. Here in Toronto, there are 65 candidates running for mayor, (19 others have dropped out). In my area, there’s also eleven candidates for councillor and seven for school board trustee. With so many candidates, how do you choose?
Maybe it becomes a Paradox of Choice [and here]: the more choices you have, the less likely you are to make a choice. And if you do make a choice, it tends to be based on irrelevant criteria such as how a candidate looks rather than, for example, their policies.
Choosing a photographer for an upcoming photo project can also be overwhelming because there are so many choices.
Trying to choose between several photographers with whom you have no experience is the same as trying to choose between candidates who have no political history. Of the total 83 candidates in my area, only four have a political history. So what should you do?
Go to the photographers’ web sites. Read the information and view the pictures. Is there enough information to answer your questions? Do you trust that information? Look at the “About Us” page: is there a photo of the photographer? What does that picture say to you?
But what if all the photographers’ web sites are more or less the same?
If you can’t decide on which photographer to select, you could check their numbers.
When it comes to choosing a politician, people will often vote for the candidate who promises the most. They look for the candidate who promises more transit, more social services, more arts funding, more business investment, more housing, more parks, etc. But people forget that when a politician promises more, there’s a catch. More always costs more.
When it comes to choosing a photographer, people will often vote for the photographer who charges the least. But people forget that when a photographer charges less, there’s a catch. Less always delivers less.
We know nothing is free. Yet many people still expect economic magic to happen.
