The business side of photography
Following on the previous post that photography is much more influential than text, here’s a quote that might be familiar to some:
In a world which is expanding day by day, literature is no longer enough . . . Our busy age does not always have time to read, but it always has time to look.
Those words are from French writer Theophile Gautier who was commenting on the power of visual arts including the new art of photography. The quote is from 1858.
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More proof about the importance and power of photography especially when it comes to corporate image, portraits and public relations:
Words are about information. Pictures are about emotion. Emotion equals power.
Print folks … like to believe that words matter still. But, mostly, they don’t.
The people who put together TV newscasts, as well as the best news photographers, have known this truism for a long time, but they’ve kept mostly quiet about it. Perhaps they don’t want to hurt the feelings of their colleagues, who still vainly cling to the belief that the written word can move hearts and minds. But the fact remains that for voters, for citizens, words don’t matter nearly as much as pictures do.
– from author Warren Kinsella
There’s been much criticism, the past few weeks, over some portraits of US Olympic athletes shot by an AFP photographer. Let’s just say these pictures won’t win any medals.
The pictures can be seen here on the Getty Images site. Some of the pictures are okay but many are definite last-place finishers.
To be fair, these types of portrait sessions are usually done in an assembly-line fashion whether it’s Olympic athletes or players on a pro sports team. A number of photographers, all in the same room, will each set up their own mini-studio. The athletes will rotate from one mini-studio to the next, spending only a minute or two with each photographer.
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Ranaan Katz, a minority co-owner of the NBA’s Miami Heat, filed a lawsuit last year against a blogger who was critical of Katz’ commercial real estate business.
Two weeks ago, Katz filed a copyright infringement suit against the same blogger for publishing an unflattering picture of him. The photo was apparently taken while Katz was standing courtside at a Miami Heat game. He’s also suing Google for refusing to remove the photo from the Web.
Katz is claiming that he owns the copyright to the picture without offering any proof.
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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 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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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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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?
