How to Stretch Your Photo Budget

We'll give this a C grade. Lots of busy details detract from its message.

We'll give this an A. Strong focal point, good composition, professional.

Think you can’t afford professional photography? Here are some ways to stretch your budget:

1. Consider hiring a photographer with a journalistic background who can shoot candids that are compelling. These require less set-up, thereby reducing cost, and add an air of authenticity to your images.
2. Set up a one- or two-day shoot that attempts to capture a variety of images that can be used in a many ways. These digital assets can be cropped differently, treated differently, and used in different applications—while still giving your organization a professional image.
3. Mix stock images with custom images to create a high quality piece. If you select images with similar characteristics and lighting, you can give the illusion of using all-custom images.
4. Negotiate a price that includes full use rights when you do hire a professional photographer. This will ensure that you can use them in various applications.
5. Plan to update your library every two years to ensure that you have fresh, high quality images with which to work.

Photos create a far more powerful first impression than words. Remember that although you can’t quantify it, there’s a cost to your organization when it appears unprofessional, careless, second rate or outdated because of poor images.

Image 1 source, Image 2 source

Good Photos Are a Marketer's Secret Weapon

Photos say things words cannot.

In the examples here, the photos say professional or unprofessional, friendly or distant, engaged or posed. We see far too many bad pictures in general—photos that actually detract from the kind of message the organization is trying to convey.

Why is this? Well, often it's a matter of vision. Marketers who understand the power of a good photo budget for a professionally-taken collection with which to work. In the same way that hiring the right architect can make all the difference in a first impression for your building, hiring the right photographer can make all the difference in a first impression for your company.

Anyone can take a photo, but it takes a skilled professional to make a photo tell a compelling story—and do it in a way that reflects handsomely on your organization. The black and white photos below were taken for our client St. Anthony North Hospital by one of our partner photographers (we have a small group of hand-picked, top-drawer photographers in the markets where we regularly do work).

Some believe that professional photography is too expensive, but we say that amateur photography actually costs the organization too much in terms of image.

There are ways to get the most from your photography budget, and we'll talk more about that in a future post. But professional photography is an absolute necessity for any organization attentive to their public image.

So now let's hear from you. Based on the pictures below, what kind of impressions do have about the organizations represented?

Image 1 source

Image 2 Source

Image 3 Source

On Location and Behind the Scenes

In the photo above, our Colorado-based video crew gets one of the interviewees ready for our shoot last week at St. Anthony Hospital North near Denver. The day-long shoot will result in a series of videos that will serve as part of a campaign to celebrate the hospital’s 40-year anniversary.

What happens behind the scenes is so important, and makes the difference between a quality production and an average production.

Here, our make-up artist is putting the finishing make-up touches on before the camera rolls. A good make-up artist plays two roles—creating a natural, healthy on-camera look, and helping the interviewees start to feel comfortable before their shoot. We look for experience, good interpersonal skills (our artist in Colorado has worked on everyone from President Obama to models), and the ability to work without becoming intrusive.

At this shoot, our videographer attends to the details that ensure quality, while our producer conducts the interviews. Both have decades of experience at this, and know exactly the elements required to capture real people in ways that are compelling, believable, and professional.

Conducting the interview is one of the most important roles, as this person plays part psychologist and part producer. It’s an art to get ordinary people to be not only believable, but real and professional on camera. For this kind of interview, we want to capture what the people most care about—so while we invite them to think about some specific questions before hand, we never want them to come prepared with a memorized script. It’s just too hard for people who don’t do this for a living to make it heart-felt and real.

Our producer is not only mindful of the message and emotional tone as he interviews, but is also coaching them on phrasing and thinking about how all of the strands of the interview will come together in the final edited piece—all the while keeping the shoot on schedule.

It's important to us that our crew always is attentive to the demands of the location and the industry—quiet, professional, and able to represent our client well.

We love working in this medium, and have introduced some new methods of making this kind of production much more affordable for our clients. We anticipate much of our work in the future to be in video, and have developed the internal framework to make this a central part of the services we offer.

Stay tuned for more on this campaign that launches in May.

Client’s Annual Report Makes Top 50 List and Garners Platinum Award

 

Key Technology’s 2010 annual report has been listed in the top 50 winners gallery in the 2009-2010 international LACP Visions Awards Annual Report Competition.

 

Other winners included companies like Cisco Systems, Munich Airport, Monsanto India, Office Depot Foundation, Direct TV, Xerox and Whirlpool.

 

The report also garnered the Platinum Award—the highest of four awards offered in each category—for annual reports in its industry. A panel of professional judges scored the project on eight aspects ranging from first impressions to message clarity.

 

The photo of the executive team, above, appears inside the report and mirrors the cover theme that evokes freshness, purity and quality—all outcomes that Key's product line helps achieve.

 

We have worked with Key Technology on their annual reports for more than a decade, and must say that they know how to inspire good work. We love helping to tell the story of this innovative, forward-thinking international company.

 

More than 4,400 entries representing 25 countries were received. LACP is the League of American Communications Professionals that helps promote best-in-class practices in communications.