Toronto editorial and portrait photographer

Press Releases Need A Good Story To Tell

July 14, 2014 No Comments

Years ago at a daily newspaper, I often watched the photo editor sort through the pile of press releases on his desk.

On busy days, he would simply throw all of them in the garbage without reading any.

“Sorry folks, we’ve got real news today,” he would say as he dropped the press releases into the trash.

On slow news days, he would look through the press releases and summarize the bad ones as: “Give me some free advertising”, “Help me make more money”, “Help me sell more crap.”

“Don’t these people know we’re a newspaper? Where’s the news?” he would rhetorically ask as he dumped the rejected press releases into the garbage.
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Public Relations and Publicity Photography

February 13, 2014 No Comments

Celebrities (and wannabe celebrities) depend on this. Politicians depend on this. All professional sports depend on this. The entertainment industry depends on this.

Publicity and public relations photography are exceptional marketing tools because photography is the number one way to get attention. The public loves looking at photos and they trust photography. News editors love free hand-out pictures not only because it’s free content but also because photos can increase readership.

One of today’s catchy buzzwords is “content marketing” but many folks will remember when it was called “public relations.”
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Memorable (part 2)

December 16, 2013 No Comments

In his 2011 book, Moonwalking with Einstein, science writer Joshua Foer describes how someone can increase their memory. He learned of a technique while covering a national memory competition. The following year, Foer won that same competition using this very technique.

To improve one’s memory, Foer learned that one has to associate an image with the information that needs to be remembered. The more memorable that image, the better the chance of remembering. It’s possible that Allan Paivio’s Dual Coding Theory (visual explanation here ;-) ) might help explain this.

Alexandra Horowitz, a PhD in cognitive science who teaches psychology at Barnard College in the US, wrote, “… a simple fact of human cognition: we naturally remember visual images. … The less banal, the better. Quotidian scenes are forgettable. What snags the cells of our brains are disgusting, bizarre and novel images.”
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Increased Earnings

February 17, 2013 No Comments

It’s said that there are three general types of media that a company can use to spread its business message:

Paid: a company buys an advertisement.
Owned: a company self-publishes on its web site, newsletter, etc.
Earned: a company gets free coverage in the news media.

Paid and owned are easy to understand and implement although most companies under-utilize their web site. In these two cases, the company controls the message but both suffer from credibility issues especially with paid media.

Paid advertising only increases brand recognition. It does nothing for brand acceptance (i.e. trust).
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Photography for Press Releases

January 26, 2013 No Comments

If a company’s press release gets published but no one reads it, did that company get its money’s worth?

News editors know that a photo can increase readership of a story by up to 300%. In fact, just any picture can boost readership by at least 34%. Readership studies have always confirmed that the first thing a viewer notices on a page is a photograph. The last thing they do is read the text.

If a press release is published without a photo, it may be the last thing a reader sees on the page.

A photograph is the entry point to a page and the invitation to read the article. Studies have proven that including a photo with the text will increase both reader interest and comprehension in that article. The corollary is that readers feel more involved with a story when it’s accompanied by a photo.
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Press conferences

January 12, 2013 No Comments

Last week, I covered a large press conference staged by a federal political party inside a big factory. The party’s media flacks told photographers where to stand, what to shoot and what not to shoot. As one of them said, “It’s our press conference. We tell you what to do.”

When reporters asked questions that the party didn’t want to answer, the reply was, “We don’t want to talk about that today” or “We’ve answered that in the past.”

The political party could’ve just sent out a press release but it wanted the photo-op showing its leader standing next to its new slogan-covered sign and mingling with the blue-collar workers at the factory.
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Lines of Sight

public relations