Why hire a photographer?
By Eyd Ryan
14 Sep 2008
In this day of information overload the web offers us many ways in which to procure images for the purposes of illustration, but is it wise to do so in detriment of employing a professional photographer?
To put it in one word, no. However, there is more to this discussion. My first observation regarding this came as I read a blog which I find to be very professional, but the images used there are inconsistent with the themes, of various sizes and with no clear ties to the blog.
We are able to go to any stock photo site and get an image for a post for less than 5$. Usually it's around 1$ per picture and that's for larger sizes. Not to mention that there are plenty of openly licensed creative commons works out there. So what is the upside of hiring a pro?
Images are mostly there in an article to provide eye candy, but also to set up a context for the reader, immerse him in the idea of the article or set his mood. Also, images are great for articles because they back up the text in that they also stimulate the visual part of the brain, and give imagination a reference point. Also, images are there to inform the reader of the information contained and help him decide whether it's worth reading. This can be a blessing or a curse, as we see later.
But why chose the photographer? It's quite simple really: consistency, uniqueness of style. You want your readers to be able to recognize your email, your blog post, your ad from all the others. And a very good way to do this is to make them expect it. Expect a square photo under the title every post. Expect a vertical banner under every title. Expect black and white, gritty photos, or expect Polaroids. No matter what you make them expect, consistency is good. We live in a branding age and that means unless people expect you to write something specifically for them, which is unlike any other article, they won't bother reading it.
A second consideration for this is consistency of style. There is nothing worse for a publication than jumping from a minimalist, high contrast black and white shot to a simple, bland crowd photo from Google. Think about it: once you get accustomed to something from a company you end up wanting it all the time. Imagine a restaurant which changed the colour and style of the table cloths every day, going from short red modern, to old-school washed out white with lace on the side. Not a very interesting experience, people don't embrace change easily.
I'm certain not all companies can afford a photographer, or travel costs for him. But there are two solutions here. Firstly, in the matter of travel costs one can use Internet images for the locations unavailable, but let the employed photographer edit them so they respect his style. They're not going to be the best fit, but it's a pretty good fix. Secondly, if you can't afford or feel you don't need a full time photographer, try to employ one online. Ask them to take photos for you. This allows you the smaller costs of online photography with advantages of a personal photographer. You can find one on the stock photo sites, but don't expect his rates to be as small for photos you order.
So no matter what you do, try to weigh in the benefits of having your own style.
