portraits

Privacy and Model Releases

3 Comments

A ridiculously long, meandering post but first, the disclaimer:

I’m not a lawyer and one look at my bank account will confirm that. You’d be foolish to take my advice without further thought. Although laws are written in black and white, they are anything but. No matter what the situation, there will always be a lawyer who will argue the opposite. Remember that civil laws can vary from province to province.

The short version of this post: Do you need a model release? Yes, no, maybe.

––––––––––––––––––––

Privacy laws and model releases go hand in hand. The federal government and most provinces have privacy laws.
Continue reading →

Hello, this is me

No Comments

It should be no surprise to anyone that many celebrities and politicians don’t actually make their own tweets on Twitter. They either have an assistant, an employee, a small staff, or a PR company, who write and send each message.

It might come as a surprise to some that not every “selfie” posted online is actually a self-portrait taken by that person. A new(?) trend is having someone else shoot one’s “self-portrait” as this provides for more picture possibilities. This probably defeats the concept of a selfie.

Some folks will even use a professional photographer to shoot their selfie. But this is now a portrait rather than a selfie, unless you define “selfie” as being a picture of yourself.

If a professional portrait photographer does a self-portrait, is it a selfie or a portrait? Some of Yousuf Karsh’s most well-known portraits are self-portraits (also here, here and here).

Continue reading →

Corporate Art and Copyright

6 Comments

A recent magazine assignment had me photographing in a Toronto law firm’s office. The reception area, conference rooms and hallways looked more like an art gallery than an office. It’s become common for high-end offices to be decorated with original artwork.

A photographer might be tempted to do an executive portrait in front of a piece of office artwork because it adds a point of interest. But beware of copyright issues.

I actively avoid showing any office artwork, just to be safe.

(I’m not a lawyer so don’t believe anything you read here . . . )
Continue reading →

For old time’s sake

No Comments

Last week, I photographed a small conference involving a number of mayors, several municipal, provincial and federal government bureaucrats, a few university professors and some company presidents.

As is my routine, I made sure every finished picture had an embedded photo caption which included the name and title of each person in the photo. Fortunately for me, everyone wore a conference name tag which made identification fairly easy.

But several name tags were partially obscured by clothing. No problem! As long as I had a partial name or job title, I could do a Web search to (eventually) find the full information.
Continue reading →

Corporate Photos Are Like Sports Announcers

No Comments

Effective photography for corporate marketing has two general types of images: those with story appeal and those that demonstrate something. The former is used to convey an idea or emotion and the latter is used to deliver a fact. The two types can overlap.

Pictures with story appeal are said to have human interest. These images are usually editorial because editorial photography is considered by the public to be more interesting and trustworthy. Conveying a message through human interest is always persuasive because this photography creates an emotional response in the viewer.
Continue reading →

Corporate Photography for First-time Customers

No Comments

When a company decides to dip its business toes into corporate photography, the first photo project is usually either business portraits or pictures of the office. This is all well and good but it may help to have an overall plan for the photography well before a camera shutter button is clicked. Corporate photography should do more than just fill empty spaces on a page.

Sure, the easy marketing plan is, “we want more customers to buy more stuff.” But that’s too vague to be of any help. If you work things backward and break it down to specific steps, you can get it to work:

How do you get more customers to buy more stuff?
Continue reading →

Types of business headshots

No Comments

When a company needs a number of business portraits, is it better for those headshots to have a uniform look or a uniform style?

Uniform Look

A uniform look means all the portraits have the same, or very similar, lighting, background and pose. This shows consistency and a strong brand.

Having a uniform look in business headshots is common at law firms, insurance companies, banks and any other company that wants, or needs, to create a feeling of stability, consistency and comfort.

A business that has many locations may want a uniform look to imply that the company is the same no matter which location you visit.

A consistent appearance creates a consistent message which helps build customer trust.
Continue reading →

css.php