Lines of SightThe business side of photography

Professional photographer: earns a living from photography. Consistently produces quality pictures to suit their client’s needs. Stands behind their work, takes responsibility for their actions, runs their own business and knows their trade. Worth more than they cost.

Amateur photographer: Has a day job. Produces pictures to please themselves. Nothing at stake, nothing to lose. Worth what they cost.

An amateur practices until they get it right. A professional practices until they can’t get it wrong.

An amateur might know how to fix mistakes. A professional knows how to avoid them.

A professional photographer has to be good all the time. An amateur has to be good only once-in-a-while.

Earlier today, I was looking at some media handout pictures from a movie distributor which is looking to get publicity for an upcoming release:

• there were no captions, no names, and no IPTC data. You have to guess who the people are in the pictures and what/where/when is happening.

• photos were overexposed by about two stops and had far too much contrast. (Pictures were shot on an amateur camera using an auto-exposure mode).

• pictures were out-of-focus.

• the original 30MB images had been upsampled to 500MB (why?), which might account for some of the out-of-focus. Who needs 36″ x 54″ @ 300 ppi images?

• image size at least 20 times too big, file size about 13 times too big. Waste of download time and bandwidth, waste of editing time and computer resources.

If you’re going to produce media handout photos, make sure they’re media-friendly and that they meet all technical requirements. It’s not a guessing game.

When it comes to media handouts, every professional photographer knows what numbers they have to hit for tonal range, image size and file size. Every experienced photographer also knows what types of images that have to produce to meet aesthetic standards, (hint: having the film director out-of-focus and partially hidden behind an grossly overexposed camera is a waste of time).

If you want to get publicity so that you can make a strong impression on the public, then make it easy for the press to use your handout images. Make the pictures too good not to use, rather than too difficult to even mess with.

One type of photography I do is shooting sports events for corporate sponsors. The sponsors usually want good action pictures with their logo visible in the photo. These pictures are often used in corporate literature, web sites and media handouts.

Readers want to see an interesting photo. Editors want a newsworthy picture. Sponsors want to see their logo as part of that interesting, newsworthy photograph.

These pictures don’t happen by chance. An experienced sports photographer knows where to position themselves to best align a logo with the game action. This means knowing the sport involved, knowing how the game will unfold and knowing how the players will move about the playing field.

When a company needs pictures from a sponsored sports event, it’s far better to hire an experienced sports photographer than any other type of photographer.

A good sports picture which “just happens” to have a corporate logo visible will always trump a logo picture which just happens to have some sports activity visible. The former will have more than a sporting chance at capturing the attention of editors and viewers. The latter is a just waste of time and money.

Of course the list of prices in the previous post, “By the pound“, is meaningless. No one sells a house by the pound, no one buys a car by the pound.

A house is priced on the subjective value of its location, the quality of design and workmanship that went into the house and the cost to build.

A car is priced on the subjective value of its brand, the quality of design and workmanship that went into the car and the cost to build.

But yet, some people expect photographers to price their services by the hour or by the picture, rather than by the value of the photography plus the quality of workmanship and the cost of production.

When some businesses try to find a corporate photographer, why do they shop price first, value second? The only products sold by weight or volume are commodities like fruit, vegetables and gasoline. Almost everything else is sold by value.

A can of Campbell’s vegetable soup is 99¢ and the No Frills store “no name” brand of vegetable soup is 63¢. Which would you buy? After tasting the thin, watery no name brand, you either go back to the higher-priced soup because it has more value, (better taste, more enjoyable), or you lower your standards and stay with the cheaper product to save money.

Same with photography. A business has to decide whether to lower its standards and use cheap photography, or go with higher-priced professional photography for more value.

Just for comparison sake, here’s the approximate cost per pound, (Canadian dollars, taxes not included), of a few items:

Nikon D3X camera: $2828

Apple iPhone (base model): $2200

Nikon D3S camera: $1818

Nikon 24mm f1.4 lens: $1527

Nikon 300mm F2.8 lens: $869

Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 lens: $847

Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 lens: $622

MacBook Pro 15″ laptop (base model): $330

Mac Pro desktop computer (base model): $75

Think Tank Airport Security roller case: $38

Porsche Boxster (base model): $18

House in Toronto: $1.06 (1600 sq ft., freestanding, single-storey brick house including foundation. Assuming $340,000 and 320,000 lbs )

House in Toronto: $0.71 (2200 sq ft., freestanding, two-storey brick house including foundation. Assuming $425,000 and 600,000 lbs.)

Now, do you have to ask why photographers charge so much?

Don’t even mention the cost of medium format cameras and digital backs:

Phase One 645DF camera + P45 back + 80mm lens: $5206

F-35 Lightning II fighter jet: $4780

Earlier this year, a Toronto corporation requested a photo quote for about a dozen business portraits for its upcoming annual report. The organization needed a portrait of its CEO and each board member. I sent a quote for the photography but never got the job.

A couple of weeks ago, the company published its annual report. There were no photos of its executives.

This suggests that:

(a) the company could not find a cheap-enough photographer,

(b) it found a cheap photographer but the pictures were unusable, or

(c) the pictures were okay but they decided not to use the photographs.

Option (c) seems unlikely. Would a director of communications hire a photographer, arrange portrait sittings for its CEO and all of its board members, and then not use the photos? Waste the CEO’s time? Waste a few thousand dollars?

That leaves (a) or (b). Either way, the company goofed.

How important is an annual report? How important is the photography in that annual report? Is this the best time to save a few bucks by cutting corners?

Here’s the best way for a company to mess up its public relations, mangle what’s left of its brand value and kill off any future credibility. (I’ll give you a hint: cut corners and go cheap on photography.)

As everyone knows, BP is in the midst of the worst oil spill in US history. As part of its attempt at public relations, and to salvage its brand, BP is trying to keep the public informed of its ongoing cleanup operations. Note that BP doesn’t call it an “oil spill” but rather an “oil well incident”.

What did BP do? It released doctored photos to the public, pictures that have been amateurishly altered to show BP in a better light. BP’s very weak mea culpa here.

The joke was that “BP” stood for “Broken Pipe”. It nows appears that it stands for “Bad Photoshopping”.

Every photo released is now suspect. If BP alters pictures, is it also altering the facts in its press releases?

Ironically, in reference to its PR photos, BP says on its corporate web site, “These images … are made available in good faith. … these images will not be used in connection with any purpose that is prejudicial to BP”.

One web commenter wrote:

What bothers me is not the fact that BP put a poorly edited photo on their website, it’s the fact that some hack got PAID good money to do such a crappy job! Doesn’t anybody have pride in their work anymore? Or is it that they are just so amazingly untalented they actually think that looks GOOD?

I’ve said it before: the worst thing a company can do is to cut corners on its business photography.

If BP spent a few more dollars instead of going cheap:

• it could’ve hired a more talented person to alter its pictures, which then would’ve gone undetected. (intended to be sarcastic)

• hired a better photographer so the pictures wouldn’t have needed to be altered. Perhaps former photojournalists who know exactly what to shoot and how to shoot it.

• hired a more knowledgeable photographer who would’ve known that you simply can’t alter public relations or media handout pictures.

• hired better public relations people who would’ve known that you can’t spin pictures like this. When an entire country is watching its every move, that company has to be 120% perfect.

If a multi-billion dollar company like BP cuts corners on a relatively tiny budget item like its public relations photography, it makes one wonder where else it’s cutting corners.

BP certainly has bigger problems on its hands than its public relations photography. It also has infinite money to (eventually) buy its way out. Most other companies don’t have this luxury.

Photography is the number one way to enhance or destroy a business image. The photography a business uses reflects the quality and perceived value of that business. The public is not stupid. Using cheap photography fools no one but yourself.

The worst thing a company can do is to cut corners on its business photography.

While looking through a number of media handout photos from a national grocery store chain, or at least from its public relations agency, it’s obvious that all of the pictures fail basic journalism standards.

Everyone in a photo must be identified. In a fully-controlled situation like a set-up publicity picture, this is easy to do. An improperly-captioned photo shows not only laziness and carelessness on the part of the photographer and the public relations agency, but also a lack of understanding of journalism and the needs of a newspaper.

Naming only one person in a group and then expecting viewers to figure out who’s who, is a failure. A company may know its executives, but the public does not. Why make readers guess?

Every identifiable person in a photo must be accounted for. Journalism 101.

If someone isn’t worth naming, then they shouldn’t be in the photo. Public relations 101.

Two reasons why media handout pictures don’t get used:

1) Boring or incompetent photography;

2) Failure to meet basic journalism standards.

A proper caption is vitally important. It should repeat the main message of the event in case the release is not read or used. More often than not, the caption is the only textual contact with the reader.

Mindless captions are a waste of time. If someone is standing to the left, there’s no point to saying: “John Smith stands on the left”, or, “John Smith looks on.” Of course, the infamous word “reacts” should never be used: “CEO John Smith (L) displays the new cell phone while Vice President Susan Brown reacts.”

Captions should not be based on appearance: “John Smith (red hat) and Bill Jones (blue hat) stand with Susan Brown and Mary Mills (darker hair).” Meaningless for readers with vision problems or when the photo runs in black and white.

All of the above mistakes come from inexperienced photographers and PR people who don’t know, or care, what they’re doing. News outlets get tons of handouts each day. Newspapers love and want handouts because they’re free content. Yet, most handouts never get used. It’s not hard to figure out.