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Should we allow images used in media to be extensively edited?
From my perspective, absolutely.
Creating a perfect image is a key element to making a product or service desirable.
Can it cause problems in society where being constantly subject to seeing these images can affect our perceptions?
Undoubtedly.
In the same way that a percentage of the population are more susceptible to hypnotism or subliminal messaging, we will all be influenced at some level by what we see every day.
Should we put disclaimers on images that are edited in magazines, billboards etc….?
Yes, I believe that we should have a something on the images so we know they’ve been retouched.
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How can we find a middle ground that doesn’t have ugly distracting banners taking a percentage of the image in the same way cigarette packets have the warning labels on them …. which don’t work. I know friends that bought skull&crossbone cigarettes because they were perceived to be more dangerous (go figure)
I thought of a possible solution:
Rather than obscuring a part of the image with a white warning box, why not put small colour (or greyscale) circles/squares subtly in the corner of the image or page which relates to the editing work that was carried out.
It could be ISO standardised so that it’s the same for everyone to use, or alternatively each magazine could have their own key chart shown in the bottom of the MastHead.
For example:
Blue: Colour change (e.g. eyes, clothes, skin)
Red: Blemish Removal
Green: Texture alterations
Yellow: Shape changing (Liquefy/Stretch/Shrink, bigger eyelashes, narrower thighs etc..)
Grey: Added extra elements (CGI, blending other images)
Here’s a rough example of how it could look.
Everyone should be happy 🙂
Advertisers keep their perfect images and consumers subconsciously know it’s been enhanced away from reality.
So, what’s your opinion on how images should be shown in the media? Edited or warts ‘n all? 🙂
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I was contacted by one of my favourite clients a month or so ago and asked if I would take some pet pictures of their stunning Pointer breed dogs, mother and daughter Imola and Monza. It’s a bit of a change to the product and car photography I show, but they are great people so I said "sure" 🙂
We discussed the details on what the images were for (a large high-key print/canvas) and I suggested we also did some shots of them just being dogs and playing in the local park as a nice contrast to the posed shots. Everything was set and so we watched the weather and a couple of weeks later the conditions turned to our favour.
I rolled up outside the house with Prabha (girlfriend and pooch fanatic) as my assistant and a 1/2 sized studio setup in the boot. For the ‘studio’ style shots there was just enough room to set up a small backlit background and train, a front light plus a little ‘CallumW special‘ to crisp them up a little 😉
The stage was set.
There’s an old saying never to work with kids or animals, but I have to say that both pooches were extremely well behaved. They were easily transfixed with the promise of biscuits and "coochycoos" from both their owner and Prabha.
Both of them were so well behaved and so adorable, I think Prabha was eyeing one of my bags to see if she could smuggle one of them home (just kidding :))
After the formal setup we headed to the park to let them loose.
A short while back I blogged about the JDM Drift cars that I photographed sliding past at speed, but seriously, they have nothing on these guys. Man these dogs are faaaast.
‘meep! meep!’ … blink …. you’ve missed them.
Needless to say there were a few shots where they were flying out of frame before I could track them. So quick … and unpredictable. At least cars follow the track (usually) and are consistent in speed.
These guys … forget it 😀
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After a short time (but not before they both went for a swim in the lake) the light began dropping which meant I was struggling to keep the shutter speed up high enough, so we got them to pose for us in a few remaining pools of light to add some variety in style.
We headed back and I packed up my mini studio and we said our farewells.
Both pooches were wiped out from all the running, but you could see they had a great day.
If that’s a dog’s life then where do I sign 🙂
A few semi-edited shots below so you can see how adorable they are 🙂
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Not much happening at the moment so I thought I’d blog about some commercial photography I did for the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) in mid-July when they were opening a couple of new Hi-Tech Ponds sponsored by Thames Water to add to their park experience.
The 42 hectare London Wetland Centre in Barnes (London) is regarded as the best urban wildlife site in Europe and, as I’d never been before, it was something I was looking forward to.
When the day came it was a scorcher.
The temperature was hovering around 28-30 Celsius which wasn’t ideal when I was carrying around 10kg of equipment on my back and 3kg in my hands, but the scenery in the hot summer sun was stunning.
My task was to photograph the opening of the new Interactive Digital Pond as well as their Pond Safari, a remote-controlled underwater camera pond (that water was looking very tempting in that heat).
They were opened by TV wildlife presenter Miranda Krestovnikoff who was great to work with and sharing her love for wildlife with the kids.
Following the 2 unveilings I was to take some general scenery images for the WWT to put in their image library which would be used for future advertising, poster, banners etc.
My contact for the day was the very knowledgeable Jamie Wyver and we walked around the park with Jamie showing me the areas of the park which he wanted photographed. We made an efficient team with him getting disclaimer signatures from parents and me getting the shots of the landscape.
At the end of the day the images were given to the WWT to put into their image library for press releases and to Thames Water for their own press releases.
It was a longer day than I expected, but the park was such an amazing place to visit and the time flew by.
Who knew such a jewel sits virtually in the middle of London?
More pics below:
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I’ve created this post to illustrate how we can’t help transferring our feelings of the quality of an image onto the person or product that’s in the image. And as a direct result this will influence the interest that we have in that person or product.
We can’t escape that engrained part of our nature that, in the first 5 seconds, we will have assessed and judged a subject by it’s appearance and a lot of our following attitude to the person/product will have been decided in that 5 seconds.
During a recent conversation, I was asked whether or not it was worth having a professional picture of themself to use on websites, email, business cards and other marketing materials?
My reaction to that is of course "Yes", but they suggested that existing snapshots from a recent holiday or wedding should suffice?
While the holiday/wedding snapshot may be free, what image will they really be portraying?
Poor Quality? Slapdash? Cheap?….. none of which you want potential clients or contacts to associate when they think of you or your product.
If you look at successful people or companies, you’ll see a common trend in that they only have quality images representing either themselves or their product or service. As an example, some companies invest tens of millions of dollars in advertising every year just to encourage us drink their brand of fizzy pop.
It’s nothing to do with ego or pride, they just know that people instantly judge by image quality.
So, an example.
If you were attending a business seminar or looking for a professional service from someone and you see a flyer or promotional email or poster with the following images … which person would you instinctively want to listen to or hire?
It’s the same girl in both pictures, but we all expect the person conveyed in the image on the right will be the one that will give us the quality service we want. You may think that it’s an extreme example, but it’s not. You’ll be surprised the number of images you see around that are like the one on the left.
But the good news is that it doesn’t actually cost much to get a professional image and therefore you can be 3 steps ahead of your competition.
If money is super tight then you could still book a photographer for a session, but by sharing the session time with a few friends or colleagues you’ll find that it’s much more affordable. The photographer won’t mind sharing and in fact they’ll probably encourage it.