A picture says 1000 words. What are those words? Are the spelled correktlee? Are they legible? Are they actually what we want to say? A perfect photographer can take a perfect photo that isn’t good at all. Just like if someone made me the perfect high heel shoe, that’s not the kind of shoe I’ll ever wear.
A good photo has a message
Shana is a balloon artist. She had this incredible photoshoot. Looked really amazing and it was shot in a cactus garden – ironic and fun! Here’s one of the photos from that shoot. Great color, lighting, and flattering.
When I talked to her about her brand — what was really valuable about what she does… It’s not balloons for one thing. People with deep pockets aren’t just looking around for the best balloon artists. They are looking for someone who can give energy to them — especially for dreary online Zoom events.
She has so much positivity, playfulness, and charisma. Super fun that makes her stand out… not just from other balloon people, but from all people. She has a great thing she can do online on zoom with requests.
It was a bummer for me to not use these cactus pictures, but they just weren’t the thing we needed. We needed that charisma and we didn’t need balloons in the foreground distracting from the real message of value. I texted her. Asked if she was wearing makeup. sent her a picture of the pose and told her to give it some energy. She took this picture with her webcam and we were done!
Quality is communication
A good photographer is good at communicating what’s happening in a moment. Taking a 4D world and translating it to 2D is not easy. A good photo will make it clear…
- what the subject actually looks like
- the nature of the skin : smooth, evenly colored, moisturized
- the nature of the eyes : wet and round
- the location (in some way)
Basically, we need to know what’s going on. A subject that doesn’t stand out from the background is a little confusing. We might need to guess where their edges are. When the lighting is a mix of colors, we can’t see what the skin is really like or that it’s even real skin. When the eyes are not well lit, we can’t tell if the person’s alive.