For Customers

Driving Emotions

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How often do you see a photo credit on a company’s press release pictures? Have you ever seen a credit line on a product photo?

For example, when you see a photo of a new car, supplied by the car manufacturer, there’s either no credit line or it simply names the car manufacturer that supplied the photo.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Company launched its advertising campaign for the 2017 Lincoln Continental. Newspapers like The Globe and Mail did their usual car review and included handout photos of the new car. But this time, the handout photos had a credit line. The November 10th print version of The Globe and Mail used:

(Photo – Annie Leibovitz / Ford)

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Before The Flood

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(This post has nothing to do with photography).

US actor and producer Leonardo DiCaprio (L) and US director Fisher Stevens arrive for a screening of their documentary “Before The Flood” during the 41st annual Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Canada, 09 September 2016.

National Geographic yesterday released “Before The Flood”, its documentary about climate change and how it affects our environment.

If you have 95 minutes, give it a view:

Edit: It appears that National Geographic has removed the documentary from the Web. It’s been taken down from its own site as well. Apparently the “free” movie was a limited time offer.

More information is on the film’s web site.

 

Toronto Film Festival 2016

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Another ridiculously long post. If you’re not somehow connected to, or involved with, the Toronto International Film Festival then it might be better to skip this post. I’m just trying to reach a certain audience.

tl;dr:
• It took 41 years but Roy Thomson Hall finally got lights; they weren’t set up right. Red carpet made narrower. More advertising added. Photo pit made smaller and still left open to the rain. Most fans stuck far away from event. Publicists in the way.

• Princess of Wales Theatre still without lights at night. Still overcrowded. Publicists in the way.

• Press conferences are okay. Publicists occasionally in the way.

• The four-day street festival still a waste of time.

• From a photographer’s point of view, the Toronto Film Festival has improved very slowly over the past 41 years. Although some years, it regresses.

• From an onlooker’s point of view, the film festival is an overly big, confusing mess of films. It has lost sight of its purpose. A major overhaul is needed.

Reduce the numbers of venues to a handful. Cut the number of films by at least 50%. Eliminate many of the film categories. Have red carpets only at Roy Thomson and the Princess of Wales. Be more fan-friendly. (This year’s festival was 397 films, in 16 categories, scattered across 28 screens).
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Ministry of Photography

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Opening day at the COP21 Summit in Paris, France, 29 November 2015.

These conference photos were shot by France’s Ministère de l’Environnement, de l’Energie et de la Mer (MEDDE) photographer. These French government photos were put into the public domain.

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) is being criticized for paying a photographer $6,662 to take pictures of its minister and her staff at the Paris COP21 climate summit late last year. [The French government’s COP21 site.]
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Next-day photo delivery

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“And we need the pictures delivered the next day!!!”

A business conference organizer will sometimes want finished pictures delivered the day after the event. It’s no problem to deliver a handful of images the same or following day, if the event needs them for a press release or its social media. But when a day-long event expects hundreds of pictures to be delivered the next day, or even the next morning, then there’s going to be a problem.

Let’s do some simple arithmetic. If you’re expecting 100 finished pictures and the photographer spends a minimal editing time of three minutes per image, then that’s 300 minutes — five hours — of work. If you’re expecting 200 or 300 photos then that can amount to a few days of work.
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The Photographer Kings

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Two decades ago in a television documentary, legendary US photographer Richard Avedon said:

Images are fast replacing words as our primary language. They define our ideas of beauty, truth and history. In our age, the photographer, not the philosopher, is king.

Today the Internet is the dominant means of communication and images are the most effective, most powerful, most universal language. People don’t read, they look.

What does this mean for you and your business?

If you’re not using photography to market your business then you’re not worth looking at, you’re not part of the conversation, you’re pretty much invisible.
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Photography value and quality

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When hiring a business portrait photographer or other corporate photographer, you might be tempted to shop by price. You may think that the lowest price means the best value.

With some tangible products, the lowest price can be the best value. But this doesn’t apply with services like photography and especially not when quality matters.

What’s the difference between value and quality?

Value: Usefulness or importance.

Quality: How good or bad something is. A degree of excellence.

Ideally a photograph has both high value and high quality but that’s not always the case. For example, a poorly exposed, out-of-focus family photo can be very valuable to you.
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