Winter is here... Wish I was there...

As the winter days get shorter and shorter, I find myself working on a new portfolio of images from my various hospitality projects. And, I really want to be there now.

So, the new portfolio is tentatively titled, "Being Here..."

More as it happens.

Create Magazine's 2007 Photographer Showcase

If you are surfing the net, looking at commercial photographers, be sure to check out Create Magazine's 2007 Photographer Showcase.

In the print edition, I am on page 90 & 91. In the online version, downloadable from their web site here, check out page 8 and 9.

Yeah, you can look at the other pages, too.

What is cheap photography?

This is from another client conversation. We were talking about stock photography versus assignment photography.

One of his in-house designers kept wanting to use images from a royalty free disk. The boss kept adamantly saying no.

Here was his reasoning, as he said it to me.

1. The people always look like models, not our customers, or even an idealized version of our customers.

2. The concept always has to be warped to fit the royalty free image the designer found, which means compromises.

3. Our product is never in the shot. Or if there is something similar, it is still not OUR product. Or, we have to spend time and money retouching.

4. The selection is so big that you end up spending a day looking for the image, a day re-concepting and a day trying to make it all fit together. Again, with compromises.

5. If the designer happens to find an image that fits our marketing goal, it also certainly fits our competition's goal. And, the marketing plan of everyone else who bought the disk. Which means that the image is not unique to us and our customers.

6. If the customer sees that image on our competition's site after ours, who is he going to associate the image with? Not us!

7. Our brand, our marketing, and our company is worth more than a $10 investment. And, we will get a better return, more sales, with a good, custom image.

8. If that $10 image loses us just one potential customer, it has cost us a heck of a lot more than $10 dollars!

The ASMP have a great article about Royalty Free photography available to the public here.

Holidays, Charity, Thanks, Etc

This year, in honor of my good friend, Alec Boudreau, my client gift was a donation to the American Society for Suicide Prevention (www.asfp.org)

Alec, it has taken me a long time to get to the point where I am not as angry any more. You are missed.

As my son reminded me a few nights ago: "Remember to be thankful for what we have."