A corporate client in Toronto recently said that they’ve always used amateur photos taken by their employees and cheap stock pictures for their annual report. But this year, the company wanted something better so they hired a professional photographer (me).
I overheard the annual report designer telling the client that a professional photographer isn’t just about better quality equipment. It’s also about the fact that “a professional photographer knows what to shoot. They see things that you don’t even think about.”
The company’s 2014 annual report isn’t finished yet but the client is “extremely happy with the pictures” and “can’t wait to get them published.”
This post isn’t about me bragging about my photography. It’s about the proven fact that professional photos are more effective than amateur pictures when it comes to earning reader attention and communicating a message.
Eyetracking studies have been around for 25 years. This type of research tracks a reader’s eye movements as they view a printed page or a web page. A computer records what the person looks at and for how long.
Results from a recent eyetrack study are being released by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). This study compared people’s responses to professional and amateur news photos. But there’s no reason to expect that the results would be any different for most other types of photography.
A few quick quotes from this study:
“Can people differentiate between professional and amateur photographs? Yes, quite definitely.”
“Bad quality kind of crushes the credibility of a photo”
“More time was spent, on average, with professionally generated photographs” than with amateur pictures.
In short, professional photos attract and hold readers’ attention better than amateur pictures. Professionally produced images are also more effective at delivering a message or story.
But these results are not new. Studies as far back as the late 1950s have repeatedly come to the same conclusions.
In his 1963 “Confessions of an Advertising Man”, David Ogilvy wrote about his research that showed the importance of using photos that tell a story. The NPPA study also confirmed that readers want photos that tell a story:
A photo needs to tell me a story, versus just capturing a scene.
Although Ogilvy was talking about advertising photography not photojournalism, the underlying concept between the two is exactly the same: get reader attention and communicate a message. Using professional photography, according to the NPPA study, is best way to do that.
Back in Ogilvy’s time, few amateur photos were used commercially. But he said that you should hire people who are better than you and always use high quality, editorial-style photography that has story appeal. All of this was echoed in the current NPPA study which found that professional, documentary-style photography (pictures that tell a story) are the most effective.
The conclusion is that if you need corporate photography to market your business then without a doubt, amateur pictures are a waste of time and money.
What about using cheap stock pictures? Glad you asked. Another post here.
It may sometimes be possible to reduce the cost of professional photography but it will involve some compromise on the client’s part. But remember that corporate photography is not for the company; it’s always for the customer. And your customers should get your best.
