For Photographers

Small Business Oath

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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.”

– attributed to Aristotle

A few years ago, when dealing with a large national media corporation, I pointed out that the company’s conduct was the exact opposite of its mission statement. The corporate lawyer laughed and said, “That [mission statement] is just for the public, it’s not for us.”

A code of conduct may not be needed by a small business because the owner is usually close to the “front lines”. So there’s little room for bad behaviour. But sadly, a big business can have plenty of such room.

Small business owners may want to create their own code of conduct, not just to impress their customers but also to remind themselves of why they are in business. Maybe something like:

As a small business owner, my purpose is to serve the customer without whom my business has no reason to exist. My business may be small in size but my pursuit of excellence shall be boundless. I promise:

• To run my business with integrity and the highest ethical standards.

• To treat customers fairly, honestly and with respect.

• To be responsible for my actions and accountable to my customers.

• To acknowledge and then, to the best of my abilities, repair any mistakes that I might make.

• To protect the interests of each customer as if they were my own.

• To improve myself and my business for the benefit of my customers.

• To be a good citizen of my community.

 

Name of the times

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It’s now the second decade of the 21st century, so stop using the phrase “digital camera.” It’s redundant. All cameras are digital, film is the exception. Feel free to use the term “film camera” when talking about a camera that uses film. Otherwise it’s just “camera.” No more “DSLR” either.

Cameras no longer have motor drives. Nothing is being driven or pulled through a digital camera.

Cameras no longer shoot “frames per second” because there are no more frames, just exposures.

Digital cameras do not videotape, tape or film anything because there’s no videotape or film in a digital camera. Digital cameras simply record video.
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Connect The Dots

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Why doesn’t a newspaper do this:

For each online crossword, sudoku, or other daily quiz, that is correctly completed by a reader, (within a certain time period), the paper donates, say, $1 to a local charity. The chosen charity can change daily or weekly.

The daily quiz would be sponsored by an advertiser which will make the charitable donation. The advertiser’s logo and message would sit right next to the quiz. Fifteen minutes to do the quiz means 15 minutes of exposure to the ad.

How many readers will take the time to complete the daily quiz knowing that it will do some social good? Word-of-mouth will help this spread as readers get their friends to join in and help fund raise for a charity.
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Zooming Big

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From time to time, some photographer friends and some “normal” friends (i.e. non-photographers) will send me pictures and ask that I make them bigger. Apparently, I do a good job. Here’s my secret:

I’ve been using PhotoZoom Pro since version 1.0, back when it had the catchy name of “S-Spline Pro”. The software works as advertised. Unfortunately, I don’t get paid to say that, I’m just a happy user.

PhotoZoom Pro 3 [as of 12/2012, it’s up to PhotoZoom Pro 5] isn’t particularly cheap but BenVista just released a new “lighter” version called PhotoZoom Classic 3. This uses the same technology as the Pro version but it has slightly fewer features and costs less than half price.

But I have a zillion-megapixel camera. Why do I need to up-sample?

If you can fill the frame with your subject all the time then you may not need this software. But if you need to resample after a huge crop, this software can do the job. If you need to up-size low-resolution pictures sent in from your customers, then this software will be useful.

I’ve cropped images from 36 MB (12-megapixel Nikon D2X) down to less than 1/6 of the frame and then resized them back up to 36 MB with PhotoZoom Pro. Editors were none-the-wiser!

Certainly, after any large up-sampling, the final image is never as perfect as the original. But it’s garbage in, garbage out. If you start with a small, poorly-exposed, out-of-focus image, then you’ll end up with a big, poorly-exposed, out-of-focus image. This software, like all other interpolation applications, makes the photograph bigger not better. Although, sometimes bigger is better.

 

Best of The Worst

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Do you like buying cheap stock photos? Take a look at iStockHell, from the makers of Clients from Hell. Not sure if photographers should be laughing or crying.

*Added Dec 19: The iStockHell site may be down or perhaps even gone. The site did mention that it had received complaints from iStock but was trying to work around them.

*Added: Sadly, the iStockHell site is gone.

 

Being Different

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“Performance artist” may be the best description for Chinese artist Li Wei. Although “crazy” could also be used.

Take a look at the mind-boggling photographs on his web site. (The site doesn’t seem to mention the name of the photographer(s).)

Aha! They’re all fake! Photoshopped pictures!

Actually, you might be surprised.

While several of the images were edited to erase the steel cables or ropes that supported the flying people, not all pictures were altered. Apparently, for a few high-air pictures, Wei just climbed up and did his thing.

Many of his floating head pictures have no digital magic whatsoever but they do use old centuries-old trickery. Some of the floating heads in the “Dream-Like Love” series must have been Photoshopped because there seems to be no other explanation.

The web site also has small videos which show some behind-the-scenes activity. In one video, while dangling from a 25th-floor ledge, Wei is suspended only by a rope handheld by two other guys.

While this work was done purely for the art, apparently Wei’s plan is to move into advertising. Do you think wildly different pictures like this might help get a business noticed?

Does corporate photography always have to be safe and boring? When should a business take a risk with its marketing photography?

 

Three wise men or three blind mice?

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There are currently four new cell phone companies about to start up in Canada. Three of them, DAVE, WIND and Public Mobile will be operating in the Toronto area. Let’s compare their marketing strategies to date.

Web sites:

DAVE is plain and boring and has no useful information. There’s no attempt at excitement and nothing whatsoever to engage the customer. The business image is “we’re cheap and boring.”

WIND is better. This company obviously knows the value of relationship building and is doing everything right in this regard. Unfortunately this site has but a couple of lousy photographs, there’s almost no useful information, and it seems to be trying too hard to be trendy. But at least these folks are thinking about customer engagement.

Public Mobile has some useful information for its customers. The site uses no photography but has some video with its executives. They do try to engage the customer through a blog where potential customers can get answers to their questions.
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