Maximizing Opportunity
Do you see yourself using every single image a photographer delivers to you?
No - but it’s not about sheer volume - it’s about creating opportunities for better choices
Recently, I sat down with a client to review the photos taken during her branded lifestyle portrait session.
As we were getting to the meat of the section of lifestyle portraits of her working on the computer, she turned to me and said, “I think we have enough of these already, let’s delete the rest and move on.”
I stopped the review and had a chat with her about that.
I mentioned that before we abandon ship on the rest of this section, it’s essential that we still look at every single photo in the pile first because we don’t know what we have yet.
The goal of reviewing the photos after the session is to identify as much visual variety so that it affords her the opportunity for maximum flexibility with regards to the ones she chooses to use throughout her online presence.
While the photos that were already selected had variety in terms of the composition of the shot and the expressions on her face, we would undoubtedly uncover other images that might offer value in other ways.
She responded by saying that regardless of variety, she couldn’t see herself using that many shots of her working on a laptop.
To her surprise, I agreed with her.
And then I told her that the intention is not necessarily to use every single photo in her portfolio.
The intention is to offer her the chance to choose a better option when she’s faced with selecting a hyper-specific type of photo for her website and/or content pieces.
So, we went back to reviewing the photos, and guess what happened?
We stumbled across a slew of shots of her on the laptop after I had adjusted the staging of some books and a file folder on the table, and that completely changed the look of the scene.
I also changed the vantage point from where I was shooting, and that also offered even more visual variety than what was present in the other selected photos.
As a result, she ended up with a visually diverse set of wide, medium and close-up shots of the activity, which can be leveraged throughout her online presence in a variety of ways.
You see, when you’re stuck with having 1 lifestyle photo for one specific marketing-based task, your choices are limited.
But if you have a large array from which to choose, your ability to stretch your legs creativity grows exponentially.
And it also provides you a chance to leverage similar photos in different ways without repeating the same exact shots over and over again.
While having a boatload of similar photos may seem like overkill, it’s actually maximizing opportunity.
No, you’re probably never going to use every single photo that your photographer hands off to you, but when you realize that that’s not the intent, you’ll begin to see where the value of this truly lies.
It lies in always having the chance to select the best photo for the job.
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