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Annual Report Failure

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Here’s another example of corporate stupidity caused by the shortsighted desire to save a buck.

Earlier today, I was looking through the 2010 annual report from Ontario’s Toronto-based Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). The 2011 annual report is not yet available.

The annual report contains one business portrait of its chairman and one of its president. All the other executives, managers and employees shown in the other photos are fake. None of those people work for this agency. The offices shown in those pictures are also fake.
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That’s Not Cricket

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Here’s an example of what happens when an organization cuts corners and goes cheap. The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants is promoting its Toronto cricket tournament which benefits school cricket teams. Good for them.

But by looking at the promotional poster for the event, it’s painfully obvious that the organizers didn’t bother to hire a professional photographer or designer. Is this poster supposed to be taken seriously or is it meant as a joke?
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Basket Of Eggs

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Another example to show that it’s not wise to put all your eggs in one basket or all your digital files on one hard drive:

According to a CBC story, a lawyer in British Columbia is suing Apple Canada after his backup hard drive, an Apple “Time Capsule”, failed after three years of use. All of his data were lost.

The hard drive included pictures of the birth of his first child.

A sad fact of our digital lives is that all digital storage is inherently unstable. Hard drives will fail. Discs will become unreadable.

There’s a reason why most professional photographers back up their work at least in triplicate. A backup for the backup of the backup. There’s a reason why most top-end cameras allow for duplicate recording of pictures as they’re being shot.

Photographs are very valuable, especially irreplaceable family pictures. So why not spend a few cents and make extra backups? Blank CDs and DVDs are about 40¢ each and external hard drives might run 25¢ per gigabyte. It’s cheap insurance.

When, not if, your basket falls to the ground, will you lose all your eggs?

 

Dress Code

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Media accreditation information for the upcoming 2012 World Football Challenge was sent out a few days ago. In this case, “football” means soccer.

One of the rules stated: “Media who are approved for credentials should not wear apparel supporting any of the competing teams.”

Normally one would assume that this rule is so obvious, it need not be said. But the fact that this professional sports event had to actually mention a dress code means a problem exists.
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Business Portraits On Social Media

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Want more proof that business portraits are important?

A 2012 eye-tracking study showed that the number-one thing viewers look at on LinkedIn pagse is the person’s profile photo. There’s no reason why this behaviour might be any different on other social networking sites.

This study [link to PDF], produced by a LinkedIn competitor, examined how professional job recruiters viewed online résumés. The first thing recruiters always noticed was the profile portrait and it held their attention for about 19% of the total time spent on page.

This can be bad news or good news.
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What’s For Dinner?

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Over the past three weeks, I received four inquiries for corporate or commercial photography services.

One request was: “We need a photographer for a conference in Toronto. We don’t have all the details yet but we need your price asap.”

The second: “We are a construction company and we’re looking to have professional photographs taken of an upcoming project. Could you please provide a basic outline of your pricing and what it includes.”

The third: “We’re looking for a photographer for tomorrow from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM. What do you charge?”

The fourth request, to cover a corporate event, included only the date, time and location. When I phoned to ask for more information, the public relations person said she couldn’t give out any details, she didn’t know what pictures they wanted, and she didn’t know how the pictures were going to be used. But she needed a quote as soon as possible.
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Photography Fees Explained

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When estimating and pricing photography, commercial photographers base their price on the combination of a creative fee (also called a photography fee) and a licensing fee (also called a usage fee). Some photographers will list these two fees separately while others will combine the two into one number.

The creative or photography fee depends on the complexity of the assignment, the time involved, the photographer’s talent and experience, and the photographer’s business overhead.

The licensing or usage fee depends on how the client intends to use the finished photography.
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