One of the nice things about shooting editorial and news pictures for newspapers, magazines and even a company’s social media and public relations, is the variety of situations that come up.
A few days ago, this was the view from my “office”:
Choose better conference photography
When your company is planning a business conference, workshop or similar event, the question of photography may come up. Conference photography is important because it can be used for your social media, a post-event newsletter, a press release, your annual report and for marketing next year’s event.
You might think that you can get an employee to do the photography because they have a cell phone camera. But if you decide to go this route instead of hiring a professional photographer, don’t pat yourself on the back.
Here’s why hiring a professional photographer is always better:
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Avoid fake news about your company
Thanks to recent events in the USA, the phrase “fake news” has become popular. Fake news, the intentional publication of hoaxes and disinformation, has existed for many decades. For example: while standing in a supermarket checkout lane, you’ve probably noticed all those crazy headlines on tabloid magazine covers: cures for cancer, alien invasions, Bigfoot sightings, the end of the world, and so on.
Sometimes fake news is used to sway opinion but mostly it’s used to make money.
Fake news isn’t used just to influence elections. It’s routinely used online to garner web clicks which in turn helps generate money through advertising. Sometimes this is outright fake news and other times it’s clickbait headlines to trick readers. Unfortunately many legitimate news outlets shoot themselves in the foot when they do the same thing:
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Worth Every Cent
When someone asks you to work for free, they want photography that’s good enough, pictures that are better than nothing, photos that are worth what they’re paying.
When someone hires you to work for pay, they want photography that’s good, pictures that are better than anything, photos that are worth what they’re paying.
What is corporate photography?
“Corporate photography” is just a general name for photography used to help market a business. It isn’t just for big corporations. This type of photography can be used by any business, big or small, incorporated or not.
Corporate photography is not advertising photography. The latter type of photography is about selling a product or service. Corporate photography is for building and enhancing a company’s name or brand and it tends to be an editorial style of photography.
The most common type of corporate photography is business portraits and headshots. Photography of business conferences and events, office interiors and exteriors, and employees on the job are also common subject matter. Corporate photographers are also used to cover a company’s involvement with a community or charity event.
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Credit card photo scam
Internet scams that target photographers have been around for years. Over the past couple of years, there’s another scam involving credit cards.
Posing as a customer, a scammer will ask to hire a photographer for an upcoming event but only if the photographer accepts credit cards. If the photographer agrees to the work, the “customer” will then mention that they also need to pay another event supplier who doesn’t take credit cards.
The scammer will offer to send extra money to the photographer which the photographer can use to pay that other supplier. To tempt the photographer, the scammer will promise the photographer a couple hundred dollars extra for their trouble.
The scammer will use a stolen credit card to pay the photographer’s fee, the other supplier’s fee and the extra money for the photographer’s trouble. The unsuspecting photographer will be told to pay the other supplier immediately – it’s urgent! – but only in cash through Western Union.
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Why your company needs a photojournalist
The British Columbia Liberal Party recently hired a former photojournalist to photograph its leader, the current premier of that province. The party is heading towards a 2017 election.
The Wildrose Party of Alberta did the same thing a year ago by hiring (on a part-time basis) a freelance photojournalist.
Almost every photographer, hired by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to cover the Canadian Prime Minister, has been a working photojournalist.
In the first two cases, the photographers are paid by the provincial political party, not the taxpayers.
Political parties could save a lot of money by hiring the lowest-bidder-with-a-camera, by doing the photos themselves, or by not hiring a photographer at all. But these political parties know that they need authentic, story-telling photography to communicate their message. This is marketing 101.
(Added 2018: The Ontario Liberal party hired a freelance photojournalist to photograph the re-election campaign of the premier.)
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