BDO at Dusk

BDO

A day in the life of a Melbourne photographer, part 2...

The Melbourne offices of 'Big Five' accountants/advisors BDO.

There's only a small window of opportunity for shooting at dusk; too early, and the sky is too light, too late, and everything is too dark! So it's important to plan your shot in advance.

Technorati Tags: photography, building photography, architectural photography, dusk photography, exterior photography, night photography, commercial photography, professional photography

Auctioneers

Auctioneers

A day in the life of a Melbourne photographer, part 1...

Auctioneering involves a lot of showmanship - so photographing these guys was a lot of fun (even at eight o'clock in the morning)!

Technorati Tags: photography, commercial photography, professional photography, people photography, auctioneers

Winter - A great time to shoot building exteriors

I know it's not winter yet, but boy are we getting some cold nights in Melbourne!

Which got me thinking - now is a good time to start planning to any photography of building exteriors you may have been putting off.

What's so good about photographing buildings in winter?

Here are three:

1. Foliage - there's less of it. Of course this will depend on the individual building and surrounding trees, but if parts of the building are normally obscured by deciduous (European!) trees, winter is your chance to see more of it.
2. Light - Dawn and dusk often produce the most interesting and/or beautiful light. And of course they both arrive at more civilised times in the winter - no need to set the alarm for four in the morning or to stay out late!
3. Air - Although cloudless, dry days are a little less common than in the other seasons, the air is often clearer and less hazy during winter. This won't affect the foreground subject that much, but if the picture is to include a city skyline or more distant landmarks, it is a great advantage.

Of course there is a downside, too - pack your gloves!

Technorati Tags: photography, exterior photography, building photography, architectural photography

Two weeks to shoot an ice cream?

My clients are often surprised at how long it takes to photograph simple environmental portraits - for example, company staff at their workplace. "All this for one shot"?, they ask.

But spare a thought for Cincinnati food photographer Teri Campbell and his clients. According to an article in the Cincinnati Business Courier, they may be up for a two-week wait while he photographs an ice cream.

My favourite quote from the article?

"...it is the space between Campbell's ears that is most valuable to his clients."

The moral?

Next time you're feeling a little frustrated that it's taking me, like, twenty minutes to set up a shot of your CEO, think of ice-cream. And remember how much you're paying to rent the space between my ears :-)

Technorati Tags: photography, photographer, commercial photography, commercial photographer, food photography, people photography, location photography, photo shoot

How to increase your odds of getting in the press

I promised somewhere (in my newsletter or here on the blog - or maybe it was just in the recesses of my twisted mind) to reveal the secret of getting your news release run in the newspaper (or a magazine).

You're probably not surprised to hear me say that it involves photography :-)

Now, I'm no PR expert (although I'll direct you to one in a minute), but I do know that journalists are desperate for interesting material (interesting being a key word - don't bother sending a sales pitch disguised as a news story, it will most likely go straight in the bin). And, like anyone, they want their job to be as easy as possible.

So, which is more interesting: A news story, or a news story with a picture? The picture wins every time, of course. Have you ever noticed that items that are virtual 'non-stories' run in the paper (or on TV) because they happen to have interesting pictures or footage to go with them?

Well, the (by now) obvious way of taking advantage of this is by sending an interesting, reproduction-quality photograph in with your media release. This will dramatically increase the chance of your story being run.

"But don't newspapers and magazines have their own photographers"?, I hear you asking. Of course the do. But there are at least three good reasons to send your own quality pictures with your news release:

1. Capture the editor or journalist's attention. When they pick up your release, it will immediately stand out from all the other boring pages of copy they receive. They will be able to see at a glance that it is something interesting that they may want to run.
2. They may run it as is, with your pictures. - Saving you the inconvenience of having their photographer come and tell you what to do - which brings us to the third, possibly most important reason:
3. You retain control of the content. Get your story portrayed the way you want. This makes your media release almost as good as good as running a free ad, probably worth thousands! Of course you can't guarantee that the story will be run exactly the way you want - but the first thing readers see is the picture, and if that shows you in a favourable light, that's a huge head start.

Of course there's no guarantee that your story will get run at all. But if you consistently send news releases that follow the rules, the odds are very, very good. In fact, if you do the numbers on it, it's a no-brainer. Think of how many news releases you could write and send for the cost of a single advertisement. Even if only one in five gets run, you'll be ahead (and with your story having much more credibility than in an ad).

Anyway, like I said, I'm no PR expert. So don't take my word for all of this. Listen to some experts. I have two favourite PR resources which I subscribe to:

Joan Stewart (The Publicity Hound) and Paul Hartunian.

Oh, and of course if you need help with that picture, you know who to call :-)

Technorati Tags: media release, press release, news release, publicity, PR, public relations