For Customers

Increased Earnings

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It’s said that there are three general types of media that a company can use to spread its business message:

Paid: a company buys an advertisement.
Owned: a company self-publishes on its web site, newsletter, etc.
Earned: a company gets free coverage in the news media.

Paid and owned are easy to understand and implement although most companies under-utilize their web site. In these two cases, the company controls the message but both suffer from credibility issues especially with paid media.

Paid advertising only increases brand recognition. It does nothing for brand acceptance (i.e. trust).
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Opinionated Portraits

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A quote from US portrait/fashion photographer Richard Avedon in his book In The American West:

A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion.

When a portrait photographer chooses lighting, lens, camera angle and the moment to click the camera shutter then it’s the photographer’s opinion that matters most. This is the “opinion” that Avedon refers to in the above quote.

But for commercial portrait photographers, when the subject looks at their proofs and chooses their favourite picture then it’s the subject’s opinion that matters most.

When a viewer looks at a finished portrait, it’s the viewer’s opinion that matters most. The viewer gets the last word.

This is why, for a commercial portrait such as a business portrait, the first two opinions have to work together to help positively influence the third and final opinion. A business portrait has to be done with care to create the desired response in the mind of the viewer.

 

Photography for Press Releases

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If a company’s press release gets published but no one reads it, did that company get its money’s worth?

News editors know that a photo can increase readership of a story by up to 300%. In fact, just any picture can boost readership by at least 34%. Readership studies have always confirmed that the first thing a viewer notices on a page is a photograph. The last thing they do is read the text.

If a press release is published without a photo, it may be the last thing a reader sees on the page.

A photograph is the entry point to a page and the invitation to read the article. Studies have proven that including a photo with the text will increase both reader interest and comprehension in that article. The corollary is that readers feel more involved with a story when it’s accompanied by a photo.
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Stealing Souls

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During a portrait session, if the subject jokingly asks if my camera will steal their soul, I’ll answer, “I hope so.”

It rubs me the wrong way, a camera. It’s a frightening thing. Cameras make ghosts out of people.

– Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan)

Sometimes a photographer will try to steal a bit of their subject’s soul. This is what separates a great portrait from an average one. Ideally a portrait should allow the viewer a moment’s chance into the subject’s world.
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Photographers and crooks

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Just in case you were wondering:

 … we photographers are nothing but a pack of crooks, thieves and voyeurs. We are to be found everywhere we are not wanted; we betray secrets that were never entrusted to us; we spy shamelessly on things that are not our business; and end up the hoarders of a vast quantity of stolen goods.

— Gyula Halász (aka Brassaï) 20th-century Hungarian photographer/artist.

 

If I’d had the nerve, I’d have become a thief or a gangster, but since I didn’t, I became a photographer.

— Emmanuel Radnitsky (aka Man Ray) 20th-century US photographer/artist.

 

 

Press conferences

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Last week, I covered a large press conference staged by a federal political party inside a big factory. The party’s media flacks told photographers where to stand, what to shoot and what not to shoot. As one of them said, “It’s our press conference. We tell you what to do.”

When reporters asked questions that the party didn’t want to answer, the reply was, “We don’t want to talk about that today” or “We’ve answered that in the past.”

The political party could’ve just sent out a press release but it wanted the photo-op showing its leader standing next to its new slogan-covered sign and mingling with the blue-collar workers at the factory.
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Worth its weight in money

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Everyone has heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. According to a real estate study, a (professional) picture is worth at least a thousand dollars.

A 2010 Wall Street Journal article cited a study done by a Seattle brokerage house which showed that professional photography increases the sale price of a home by anywhere from $934 to $116,000.

The reason for this is simple:

Better quality photography => more attention => more customers => more money.
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