commercial photography

Business Photography of Yesteryear

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The need for business photography, commercial photography and advertising photography has existed almost as long as photography itself.

 

An advertisement for the McLaughlin Carriage Company of Oshawa, Ontario, circa 1907. Early advertising used drawings, photo engravings or photo etchings. (Library and Archives Canada)

Early advertising illustrations for newspapers, billboards and posters were created from drawings, photo engravings or photo etchings. The first use of halftones to reproduce a continuous tone photograph was in 1869 in Canada but it took several decades before it became common practice.

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Balancing Act

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There are three types of colour photographs: those with bad colour, those with accurate colour and those with pleasing colour.

If the skin tones in your business portrait don’t look good or if your pictures have an overall colour cast, then your photos have a bad colour balance.

Accurate colour is required when the colours in a photo must match the real-life colours. For example, clothing colours in a catalog should match the actual colours.

Pleasing colour is for pictures that have to look nice rather than be absolutely accurate. Portraits often have pleasing colour because a nice skin tone is usually preferred over accurate skin colour.
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A Tale of Two Houses

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(With apologies to Charles Dickens)

It was the best of houses, it was the worst of houses, it was the age of beauty, it was the age of squalor, it was the epoch of style, it was the epoch of simplicity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of disrepair . . .
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Driving Emotions

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How often do you see a photo credit on a company’s press release pictures? Have you ever seen a credit line on a product photo?

For example, when you see a photo of a new car, supplied by the car manufacturer, there’s either no credit line or it simply names the car manufacturer that supplied the photo.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Company launched its advertising campaign for the 2017 Lincoln Continental. Newspapers like The Globe and Mail did their usual car review and included handout photos of the new car. But this time, the handout photos had a credit line. The November 10th print version of The Globe and Mail used:

(Photo – Annie Leibovitz / Ford)

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Product Photography Standards

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Many commercial photographers do product photography and it’s usually done on a white background. This style of product photography is very common. Web sites, catalogs, newspaper ads, brochures and billboards all frequently use “product-on-white”.

A white background is popular because: it reproduces easily and consistently in any medium; it doesn’t distract from the product nor cause any colour cast; it won’t go out of style; it’s easy to drop out or overlay with text; it’s easy to merge multiple product photos together. White is simply the most versatile product background.

Crazily enough, in 2014, Amazon was granted a US patent for product-on-white photography. This caused quite an uproar. Tens of thousands of photographers petitioned the US Patent Office to cancel the patent. But photographers can still shoot products on a white background. Amazon’s patented technique is somewhat specific in nature and it’s also unenforceable.
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Canadian readership numbers

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A couple months ago, the Newspaper Audience Databank (NADbank) and the Print Measurement Bureau (PMB) released their Spring 2015 survey of readership numbers for its member newspapers and magazines.

If you need readership (not circulation) numbers of some Canadian newspapers and magazines to help with your photography pricing, then have a look at this list which uses 2014 data. Readership numbers are typically much higher than the corresponding print circulation numbers.

This is more for commercial photography that will appear in these publications and not so much for editorial. While many publications have “fixed” rates for editorial photography, some do have wiggle room to negotiate higher rates.

The days of pricing photography based on circulation still exist but it may be more accurate to price based on readership especially since that’s how some publications charge their advertisers.

 

Photography production value

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Let’s say you’re planning to have live music at your business conference or other corporate event. You might hire a soloist, a duo, a trio, a quartet or maybe even a symphony orchestra.

The music from each type of ensemble will sound different depending on the amount of musicians and instruments available. A soloist will never sound like a quartet, a duo will never sound like a symphony. It goes without saying that the bigger the production, the higher the price.

The exact same thing applies to photography.
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