Photography.

This question is better rephrased as, ‘Why is professionalism important to my business?’ If anyone who owned a camera could take professional photographs, then there wouldn’t be a billion-dollar industry for professional photographers. What can a professional photographer add to your business? Let’s put it in perspective; if you were getting married, who would you trust to take your photographs? A professional, experienced photographer, or a tourist you grabbed off the street who happened to be wearing a camera? It’s the same principle: you want to look good, you want to optimize capturing the mood, and you want to create memories. A professional photographer does that. You already know that a picture paints 1,000 words, but no one thinks about what type of words they are painting. You want your 1,000 words to be credible, positive, and forceful for all the right reasons, but the wrong image can also paint 1,000 words that are better not put into print. Professional photos create the right atmosphere and convey a strong message of 1,000 positive words that is easily digestible by your audience and builds up the image of your company.

To make sure your company can compete with a digital world in your industry, you need to take an inventory of your photography. See how many images you have, and examine the quality. What do those images say to you? Compare them to the points below and see if they sound familiar:

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• There is no photography for the company

• The photographs the company uses are not up to date

• The photography is not representative of the size / level of professionalism of the company

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Quality, company-specific photographs are necessary to the success of your company. Images have voices, so make sure they speak to the credibility of your company and draw in your chosen demographic. We at The OB can create photos that showcase your brand and express how important your company is to your consumer. Just ask us how.

Having the right equipment is vital to the outcome of every job. If you are a professional baker the equipment you buy from your local grocery store is not going to give you the results necessary to provide an adequate service to your customers. In today’s competitive market an adequate service is not enough to run a successful business. Using low quality or incorrect equipment for a job is setting yourself up for failure. It is the same with photography. Professional photographic equipment captures amazing images as that is what it is designed to do. They can be infinitely manipulated and calibrated to create photos that are almost unbelievable, at resolutions that makes them useful for any media…but that versatility comes at a price. If you want professional-quality images you need professional-quality camera equipment, and professional-quality lighting. Photography equipment sold to general consumers just doesn’t have the capacity to take professional-quality pictures. Along with the right camera equipment comes another element – you need the camera in the right hands. Setting up a fantastic shot takes times, and waiting until everything is at the zenith of perfection to take the shot is everything. This takes skill and talent. The Original Brander is lucky to have a talented team of photographers that care about each image, and make sure it is their best. After all, what’s the point of bringing a $30,000 camera if you’re going to have it operated by a monkey?

Stock photographs are great to use under two circumstances: you are marketing a service as opposed to product, or there are budget restrictions. Intangible services like accounting or law firms are hard to express in photographs as there is no product to market. Stock photography is good for inserting a range of ambient photographs that express the essence of the company in an ethereal manner. They are also a much more economical way of accessing high-quality professional images. There is a downside, however: these photos are more generic and can be used by any company.

If your competitor also picks the same image to represent his business – how will your customers know which company is which? Or even worse, if there is a big disparity in quality, how can they remember which business they prefer? Stock photos are not appropriate when you can have a personalized, professional photo taken. For instance, what has more marketing power – a stock photo of trucks, or a high-quality photo of a fleet of your branded trucks in front of your building? What says more about your company?

Your photography needs to express what you do, so if you have specific equipment or processes it is better to have an image of those than a generic one. You cannot market a product or service you did not create, so stock photography of builders working on a building you did not build may have far-reaching ramifications on the credibility of your company. Images can sell a company better than text can – but only if they are the right images. Professional personalized photography sells products. Period.

Raw Images:
Raw images are sometimes called ‘out of camera’, or OOC, images. These are the images exactly as they were taken, with no editing or post-production work at all. You would need these images if you wanted to do the post-production yourself, or are extremely budget-conscious and wanted to reduce cost. To get the most out of your images we do not recommend using the raw image in your marketing, as careful optimization can add so much more value to the picture.

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Post Editing (Optional):
Raw images are taken and edited so that they can do full justice to the story within the image. Colour balancing, brightness adjustments, and other elements of the photo are manipulated to produce an image that is optimized for the marketing goal it was created for. Post editing is recommended for all the images we take so that your company image is presented at its best.

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Finalized Images:
After the images are optimized and made ready, the selection of finalized photos is completed and these images are cropped accordingly. They are then put into the right format for your needs and delivered for you to use.

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Usage Rights:
The images we create for you are your images. You own the images and have the right to use them as you wish with no restrictions. We do retain the limited right, however, to showcase your photos in promotional material for Arc Reactions.

A professional photograph goes through two specific stages of production. The first is the setting up and capturing of the raw image, then the raw image is processed in post-production to optimize it. Raw images are never used in professional marketing as they lack the ‘pop’ that can be achieved with a little post-production editing. In post-production editing the image goes through colour balancing and correction, exposure time correction, touching up, and error adjustment. Although great care is taken to create the right image at the time of capture, errors do occur and a photo may not always be perfect. Post production is a chance to correct anything that distracts from the narrative of the photo and raise the level of the image to its full potential.

Every image tells a story and a creative marketing agency knows how to use that narrative to influence an audience. Different types of photos create different narratives and here you can see how:

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People:
Photos of people give your company a sense of gravitas. People relate to people and knowing the face behind a function or voice quickly helps to build a bond with your chosen demographic.

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Interiors:
Interior shots provide credibility to your company. The client can see what type of organization your company is by the space it occupies. Photos of the interior also help establish a sense of familiarity.

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Landscapes:
Landscapes often bring a sense of placement with a client, so that they can visualize your company in the right setting. They can also suggest more ethereal concepts like ‘old age’ with a setting sun, or ‘solidity’ with marble statues and monumental buildings.

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Buildings/Exteriors:
Exterior shots of a company can give your client a complete picture of the quality of your business, but also an idea of scale.

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Equipment:
Photos of equipment, both idle and operating, suggest a work ethic but also establish the context in which your business operates. They allow your client to bond to the process and feel more confident in your capabilities.

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Services:
If you are marketing a service, then you need pictures of people going about their daily business. There is a sense of transparency that comes with images of people doing their jobs that reassures consumers.

There is a significant ROI in professional photography when used in a mixed media marketing setting. Professional photographs are designed to be attractive images – they entice people to look further – and in a marketing sense, they attract your chosen audience to look further. They are also there to tell a visual story of the quality and credibility of your company. Good quality marketing collateral with professional images provides proof and a validation of your company and saves your sales force time in trying to convince a client of your capability in your industry. Clients can instantly see the care and attention you put into your brand and translate this into the care and attention you will put into their business if they deal with you. Images are easy to digest and extract information from and are usually the most memorable part of marketing collateral, so make sure they present your company at its best.