Consistent Business Portraits

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A potential corporate client reached out, requesting a photographer who could replicate the look of their previous business portraits. Their new employees needed headshots that matched the style of the existing ones.

Matching previous portraits is a common request, and it reflects a company’s understanding of the importance of consistency in business messaging. Consistency fosters a sense of stability, which in turn builds trust.

Trust is built with consistency. – Lincoln Chafee, US state governor

It’s typically easy to match the style of existing business portraits but I asked the company to provide samples of the previous images, just to be sure.

Oiy!
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Failing A Class

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It’s not even necessary to read the news story. The picture says it all.

In a Grade 2 class photo, all the students are grouped together in the centre. Except one. A student in a wheelchair is off to the side. The child’s father said he cried when he saw the photo.

The picture is not just thoughtless, it’s also bad photography. It shows how not to do a group photo. The picture is what you get from an inexperienced photographer. School portrait companies, in this case, Lifetouch, are notorious for having a high turnover of photographers.

Lifetouch says, “Our school photographers take their role in preserving memories seriously” and “Our school photographers are committed to making each child feel special and valued.” It seems the company failed this class.
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Prisoners or Pictures?

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When did “photograph” become a bad word?

When writing online about their pictures, some folks will use statements like, “I captured this on…”, “this was captured at…”, “my favourite capture of the week”, “sunset captures from my vacation”, “holiday captures”, “best wedding captures”, “creative pet captures” and “candid kid captures.”

On sites where viewers can leave comments to posted pictures, people often write things such as “Nice capture!”, “Cool capture!”, “How did you capture that?”, “Lovely detail in that capture” and “I love the feel of this capture.”

There are many sites that offer tips on how to capture a winning photo, how to capture the perfect picture and how to capture your children.
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Fear Photography

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As a photographer, which would you prefer: lots of low-paying customers or only a few high-paying customers? For example:

Photographer A shoots three business portraits every week at $100 each. His annual gross revenue is 3 X $100 X 52 = $15,600.

Photographer B does only one business portrait every other week at $600. Her annual gross is 1 x $600 x 26 = $15,600.

Which is better: low price with high volume or high price with low volume?
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Getting On Base

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A recent article in a Canadian photo magazine gives advice on how to become a professional sports photographer. The article talks about the excitement of being at sports events and blasting away at ten frames per second. A look at the author’s web site shows many fantastic photos . . . of weddings and portraits.

The author’s advice for wannabe sports photographers is to call sports events and ask for a free “photo pass.” If necessary, the photographer should offer free photos in exchange for said pass. Later, when the photographer has gained some experience, they can sell pictures to the event and enter the exciting world of sports photography.

This information is wrong.
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Back in the darkroom

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Over the past few years, almost all photography-related software has taken a turn for the worse. Such software has adopted a dark-coloured user interface along with either reverse type (white text on a dark background), dark text on a dark background, or even grey text on a grey background.

Some software companies don’t seem to understand how our eyes work. Since reading a computer monitor is known to be more difficult than reading a piece of paper, one would think that software companies would take this into consideration.
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Budgeting for an investment

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Earlier today, I received a call from a company asking for a quote to produce seven business portraits. After I sent my quote ($1,640 plus tax), the person said they had received quotes from three other photographers.

All four photographers, including myself, had quoted prices around $1,500. Unfortunately, the person continued, the company’s budget was “well under $500.”

 

Everyone has a camera built into their cell phone. Push a button and the picture appears instantly. Photography is seemingly free. This is the downside to digital cameras.
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