The business side of photography
Earlier this week, a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab announced their development of an imaging system that can capture the equivalent of half a trillion pictures per second:
We have built an imaging solution that allows us to visualize propagation of light. The effective exposure time of each frame is two trillionths of a second and the resultant visualization depicts the movement of light at roughly half a trillion frames per second.
Last week, an interesting psychology paper was published, titled “The Dark Side of Creativity: Original Thinkers Can Be More Dishonest”. Written by Francesca Gino of Harvard University and Dan Ariely of Duke University, the paper’s abstract includes:
Creativity is a common aspiration for individuals, organizations, and societies. Here, however, we test whether creativity increases dishonesty. We propose that a creative personality and a creative mindset promote individuals’ ability to justify their behavior, which, in turn, leads to unethical behavior.
In 5 studies, we show that participants with creative personalities tended to cheat more than less creative individuals and that dispositional creativity is a better predictor of unethical behavior than intelligence (…)
The results provide evidence for an association between creativity and dishonesty, thus highlighting a dark side of creativity.
The full, 47-page study can be downloaded from Harvard (note: PDF file) but I doubt you’d want to do that. It’s a long and technical read.
Harvard Business School has a short review of the paper that’s much easier to read.
From time to time, potential customers and photo students will ask, “What’s the day rate for a corporate photographer in Toronto?”, “What does the average Toronto commercial photographer charge?” or “What’s the standard hourly fee for business photography?”
The answer to all of those questions is the same: no such fee exists. There is no day rate, no half-day rate and no hourly fee.
It would be like calling a restaurant to ask, “What’s the going rate for a dinner?”
Does anyone ever ask a dentist, “What’s your hourly charge?”
Can you ask a shoe store clerk, “What’s the standard price for a pair of shoes?”
Professional photographers base their fee on how the pictures will be used, what’s involved in producing those pictures and the photographer’s talent, experience and overhead costs.
Since every job is different, there’s no one-size-fits-all price, no going rate, no standard hourly fee.
Most companies use photography on their web sites, social media sites, corporate blogs, printed brochures and marketing materials, in-house publications, trade show displays and probably in several other ways. As such, it’s very important that companies have a policy regarding the handling and storage of these photographs.
• By law, almost every picture is copyrighted. Permission to reproduce such photos needs to be in writing. Does a business have written permission for every picture it uses? Where are these written permissions kept?
• Professional photography is licensed for use and rarely, if ever, sold outright. Where does a company keep copies of these licenses and how are they tracked?
A photography article describes some tools that can be used to help get colour-correct photos. One such tool is the use of proper illumination for viewing prints.
I went to the website of a Florida-based company that was mentioned in that article and was deciding whether to purchase several of its $90 lamps. But before sending off a few hundred dollars, I looked at its About Us page. It was very obvious that something wasn’t right.
The About Us page yells, “Nice to meet you!” and then brags, “The truth is we’re a small company made up of real people – no drones here!” And right next to this statement, there’s a cheap, stock picture of anonymous people. (Available here, here and here).
If a company misrepresents its identity, can you trust what it says about its products?
Needless to say, I didn’t buy anything.
I don’t mean to pick on this one company because there are many other businesses, from small to international, that use cheap, anonymous, stock pictures for their business image. But it’s been proven that stock pictures push customers away; it makes them hide their wallets.
When a company uses stock pictures, it’s counterproductive. It fools no one but themselves.
You know you’ve hired the wrong photographer for your corporate photography or public relations photography when:
10. Their e-mail address is something like hotshotpixx@yahoo or flashphoto5000@hotmail.
9. They show up for your executive portraits wearing jeans and running shoes.
8. They frequently say, “Don’t worry, I can fix it later with Photoshop.”
7. At your event, they never stray more than an arm’s length away from the refreshments.
6. At your corporate event, they spend more time handing out business cards to your guests.
5. Low quality business portraits are blamed on the subjects’ lack of modeling skills.
4. After the assignment, they just transfer the images to a CD and hand it to you.
3. Offers a discount if you pay in cash and don’t want a receipt.
2. They give only verbal estimates.
1. They’re the cheapest photographer in town.
“Of all the many things that make up a wedding, few are more important than the photographs.”
That’s the opening sentence in a NY Times story about an ongoing lawsuit where a groom is suing his wedding photographer for $4,100 (cost of the photography) plus $48,000 to recreate the wedding so it can be re-photographed.
The groom claimed the photographer missed the last dance and the bouquet toss. He also stated he wasn’t happy with the finished pictures and that the two-hour wedding video was too short. His claim for emotional distress has already been denied.
And now some details: the wedding was in 2003; the couple separated in 2008; he filed the lawsuit in 2009 just before the six-year statute of limitations expired; the divorced was finalized in 2010; he has no idea where his ex-wife lives.
Read the New York TImes article for lots more information.
Last month, author Seth Godin wrote a blog post titled “Memories of Bitterness”. Although his post has nothing to do with the groom’s lawsuit, the underlying point to Godin’s post might be somewhat applicable. Customer service is about providing the customer with a positive buying experience.
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In an unrelated story, the LA Times reported that a wedding photographer was sentenced to 510 days in jail for failing to deliver photos to dozens of his clients. The photographer must also pay full restitution to all victims plus $19,542 for investigative costs.
