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Photography Sandwich

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Different breads, various vegetables, a number of cheeses, an assortment of meats and a selection of dressings. There are many ways to combine these ingredients to produce a sandwich. And each sandwich would taste quite different.

Different ideas, various lenses, a number of camera angles, an assortment of lighting styles and a selection of editing techniques. There are many ways to combine these ingredients to produce a photo. And each photo would look quite different.

Just as every restaurant has a different recipe for common foods such as a club sandwich or a grilled cheese, every photographer has a different recipe for common corporate photography services such as a business headshot or a product shot.

While some customers may shop only for the cheapest sandwich, most people will prefer to order a good-tasting sandwich. Similarly some people may shop for the cheapest photographer but others will prefer the photographer who can produce the best pictures.

When looking to hire a professional photographer for your next business project, instead of shopping price, why not shop photography? After all, when the work is done, you’ll be displaying a photograph not a sales receipt showing what you paid.

 

Hello, this is me

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It should be no surprise to anyone that many celebrities and politicians don’t actually make their own tweets on Twitter. They either have an assistant, an employee, a small staff, or a PR company, who write and send each message.

It might come as a surprise to some that not every “selfie” posted online is actually a self-portrait taken by that person. A new(?) trend is having someone else shoot one’s “self-portrait” as this provides for more picture possibilities. This probably defeats the concept of a selfie.

Some folks will even use a professional photographer to shoot their selfie. But this is now a portrait rather than a selfie, unless you define “selfie” as being a picture of yourself.

If a professional portrait photographer does a self-portrait, is it a selfie or a portrait? Some of Yousuf Karsh’s most well-known portraits are self-portraits (also here, here and here).

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Press releases need a good story to tell

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Years ago when I worked at a daily newspaper, the photo editor would each morning sort through the pile of press releases on his desk. On busy days, he would simply throw all of them in the garbage without reading any.

“Sorry folks, we’ve got real news today,” he would say as he pushed all the press releases into the trash.

On slow news days, he would look through the press releases and summarize the bad ones as: “Help me make more money,” “Help me sell more crap,” or “Give me some free advertising.”

“Don’t these people know we’re a newspaper? Where’s the news?” he would say as he dumped the rejected press releases into the garbage.
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For old time’s sake

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Last week, I photographed a small conference involving a number of mayors, several municipal, provincial and federal government bureaucrats, a few university professors and some company presidents.

As is my routine, I made sure every finished picture had an embedded photo caption which included the name and title of each person in the photo. Fortunately for me, everyone wore a conference name tag which made identification fairly easy.

But several name tags were partially obscured by clothing. No problem! As long as I had a partial name or job title, I could do a Web search to (eventually) find the full information.
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Authentic photography for corporate social media

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Press junkets are common in the newspaper industry. A junket is a third-party-sponsored event where that third party is looking for some free publicity. For example:

• A car manufacturer will take a group of writers to an exotic location where they can test drive a new vehicle. Of course, the car company will pay all the expenses.

• A travel company will pay for everything when it flies reporters to a series of tropical destinations so they can experience the locations firsthand and then write about their adventures. (Although I’ve been told by one such travel writer that these excursions can often visit a number of destinations in as many days and it can become a gruelling endurance test.)

• An entertainment network will fly writers to Hollywood, New York City or the location of a movie shoot so they can meet and interview the actors and director.

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Recycling The Trash

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Here in Ontario, we’re in the early days of a provincial election and the three political parties are on the campaign trail.

This post could’ve been about the fact that the Conservatives don’t even have a business portrait of its leader and that several of its candidates also don’t have headshots. No portrait = invisible.

Or this post could’ve been about the NDP which had to cut-and-paste its candidate headshots onto a matching background since the party couldn’t figure out how to organize consistent portraits in the first place. [Edit May 13: It appears that the NDP’s first attempt at cut-and-paste onto a high-school blue background was so bad that they did the cut-and-paste all over again.]

Or this post could’ve been about the media handout pictures from the three parties. Those photos have no captions, no IDs, no information whatsoever. They are useless as media handouts.
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Are press releases dying off?

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A journalism site recently posted an article titled “Has social media finally killed the press release?”

Here’s a truism: any time a headline is in the form of a question that can be answered with a yes or no, the answer is invariably always no. If the answer was yes, the headline would be in the form of a statement not a question.

Social media makes it fast, easy and free to send out information to the masses. But that was never the purpose of a press release, or at least a press release from a smart company.
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