Digital Asset Management and Avoiding Stock Images...

An interesing article here with some strong arguments against using Stock Images on a website:

Avoiding Stock...

Some quotes:

“So many businesses invest heavily in their brands to get across their message and identity to their customers, yet they let the whole concept down by opting for stock photographs, which do anything but give them a unique identity,” he said. “They really need images that tell their story and nobody else’s.

“One of the reasons we landed the BMA contract was because their marketing people wanted real doctors to illustrate their collateral and not impossibly good-looking surgeons with bleached white teeth.”

And I think this spells out why it is best for a Marketing Campaign to be personal and supplied with Custom Images rather than Stock...

Controlling your light and environment.

One of the key aspects of successful commercial photography is the ability to control the light and subject.

This is not always as straight forward as it seems.

For instance, how would you get a picture of a duck, half in and half out of the water?

Read this story to find out:

Duck Shot

CES 2012

The latest in Camera Technology will be on display at the CES Show.

The Photography industry always watches these big events with interest.

From the CES SHOW itself:

The Industry’s Brightest Minds Come Here
Every year, the most cutting-edge innovations can be seen in one place. Join us January 10–13 (Tuesday-Friday), 2012, in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., for the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow. Register now, and be prepared to be surrounded by thinkers, creatives, leaders, dreamers and innovators – and the life-changing products they create.

Product Image Zoom Technology

More and more ecommerce platforms are placing an emphasis on delivering high quality images.

One of the more recent popular software solutions is zooming of images.

These software solutions do need high resolution images and in fact raise their importance.

Here we have ekmpowershop offering their latest variation of this software:

Image Zoom

The power of social media...

Interesting story here.

Man takes a picture of his daughter at a shopping centre and then runs into problems with the security staff and the police.

Details here:

Braehead Shopping Center

What is interesting about this story is that due to the man "marketing" his story on Facebook and receiving lots of support, the shopping centres changed their policies.

Amazing what a little communication can do...

Have you ever considered offering Photography to your clients?

Imagine you are involved in Real Estate in one way shape or form.

Would you use professional photographers and supply them "free" for your clients to use?

One company has and is in fact uing it as a unique selling point:

Airbnb marketing through photography

This is actually a piece of genius as a selling point, I hope it works for them and others follow suit.

Hereford Photography Exhibition

The Exhibition runs from October 28 to November 26, featuring more than 200 works in a range of venues, including Hereford Museum and Art Gallery, The Courtyard, Hereford Cathedral, Hereford College of Arts and The Watershed.

More information here:

Hereford Photography Exhibition 2011

Can a blind man take a photgraph?

Apparently so...

Using techniques where they asertain conditions based on temperature, warmth of the sun, sound etc, a group of blined photographers have been taking pictures and exhibiting those images.

More information on this fascinating story here:

Blind Photographers

The cost of Photographic Equipment

These days, it is often perceived that a company can competently take good pictures, with just a basic camera.

The actual cost of Photographic Equipment can be little understood.

A recent robbery of a Photo Studio, shows the cost that the Photographer has to invest to be able to achieve good images.

This does not even include the skill levels required.

Here is the full article:

Studio Robbed

A professional photographer will invest significant time and resources to deliver a high quality product.

Hopefully all will work out well for this photographer and the criminals will be tracked down.

Venture Photography thrown a lifeline.

In this age of economic turmoil, it seems that Venture Photography have been having plenty of problems.

Known up and down the country for their systematic shooting style and being available on many a high street, it seems the market is having trouble bearing the cost of such an operation.

Full details here:

Venture lifeline.

In times like this, production costs have to be kept down and controlled and markets have to be very carefully gauged and marketed to.

Spurs rebrand with photography

It seems that Spurs (Tottenham Football Club) are also taking their branding seriously.

It is interesting that they have chosen to give a higher priorty to the photography element.

Which suggests that a realisation of the importance of this has hit the company:

Spurs Rebrand

Is your brand in need of a photographic makeover?

Photography and marketing a nation

Photography and Marketing are inexplicably linked.

We live in a world where visual communication is the most powerful form of communication known to man.

Much of that imagery is communicated through the lens of a camera.

But how effective and powerful can it be?

A recent Awards ceremony in Pakistan showcased such an attempt to re-brand a country.

The fact that people even engage in such an idea shows how important photography is in branding.

Consider this attempt at a re-branding exercise for the country of Pakistan:

Re-branding Pakistan

Branding is more than a logo, branding is the visual imagery a potential customer is faced with.

And that goes deeper than the front page of a website.

Every image is an opportunity to sell a brand.

And every image is an opportunity to fail to sell a brand.

So if it is good enough for a nation, it should be good enough for any company.