The business of photography and retouching
Everyone has heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. According to a real estate study, a (professional) picture is worth at least a thousand dollars.
A 2010 Wall Street Journal article cited a study done by a Seattle brokerage house which showed that professional photography increases the sale price of a home by anywhere from $934 to $116,000.
The reason for this is simple:
Better quality photography => more attention => more customers => more money.
Continue reading →
Over the past two months, I photographed a total of 49 business portraits for a few small to mid-sized Toronto companies.
What never ceases to amaze me is how different each person looks. If you walk along a street and casually glance around at other people, you may think that everyone looks about the same. But, as with snowflakes, no two people are alike.
Face shape, eyes, ears, nose, smile, hair, skin colour and skin texture are quite different from one person to the next. This is very noticeable when photographing people up-close and later when editing and retouching the pictures.
Speaking of retouching, it’s always better to use a makeup artist and hair stylist before the picture is taken rather than relying on retouching afterward.
Continue reading →
It sometimes appears that smaller companies have bigger photo budgets than larger companies. Examples:
• The world’s second largest car manufacturer last month asked about covering its Toronto press conference. It was budgeting $250 for two hours of shooting, a couple hours of editing, and a disc full of images. The photos were to be used internally and for media handouts.
By comparison, a small publisher in Toronto, with a handful of employees, budgeted $750 to cover its 30-minute press conference. One photo was for a media handout and a handful of other photos were for internal use.
Following on the previous post that photography is much more influential than text, here’s a quote that might be familiar to some:
In a world which is expanding day by day, literature is no longer enough . . . Our busy age does not always have time to read, but it always has time to look.
Those words are from French writer Theophile Gautier who was commenting on the power of visual arts including the new art of photography. The quote is from 1858.
Continue reading →
More proof about the importance and power of photography especially when it comes to corporate image, portraits and public relations:
Words are about information. Pictures are about emotion. Emotion equals power.
Print folks … like to believe that words matter still. But, mostly, they don’t.
The people who put together TV newscasts, as well as the best news photographers, have known this truism for a long time, but they’ve kept mostly quiet about it. Perhaps they don’t want to hurt the feelings of their colleagues, who still vainly cling to the belief that the written word can move hearts and minds. But the fact remains that for voters, for citizens, words don’t matter nearly as much as pictures do.
– from author Warren Kinsella
Some photo assignments can be challenging in one way or another. But a professional photographer should welcome such assignments as an opportunity to build customer trust and enhance the photographer’s reputation.
Any photographer can show up, shoot a few business portraits, and deliver photos a few days later. However the photographer didn’t really prove anything to the customer except that the photographer was competent.
But if. . .
Continue reading →
When a car has a leaky tire, the problem is obvious and the solution is simple. The car owner could shop price to find the cheapest, reasonably competent “grease monkey” to make the repair. (Grease monkey is an uncomplimentary term for a low-end car mechanic.)
Continue reading →
