An interesting response from a company after we telephoned them offering professional photographic services. Indeed this response, or one similar, is not at all uncommon when speaking to large companies nowadays.
I say interesting because, extraordinarily, it suggests that ownership of a camera, digital in this case, invalidates the value of a competent photographer.
I can see why this phenomenon occurs however. Let us first look at the ‘digital’ part. Practically everyone owns a digital camera. It’s either in a drawer in the living room or immediately to hand in a mobile phone. All you have to do is aim it and fire. Hey presto … there’s an image. Immediate and free (I’d like to leave any discussion about equipment choice to another time).
Now let’s look at the second part of the recipe … the photographer. Let us assume that the company does indeed own the necessary equipment needed to produce the required finished product, and I should mention that the camera is only a very small part. The key ingredient in this recipe knowing what to do. Let me give you some very basic hints …
One needs to be able to …
1) Visualise the final image before starting.
2) Compose (no matter how simple the subject).
3) Understand light and be able to manipulate it.
4) Control perspective.
5) Control depth of field.
6) Process the final image (as visualised before shooting).
The above is a very basic outline and leaves out loads, but you get the general idea. This then is the job of the photographer. I know it sounds obvious but it’s the very bit that the person at the company being telephoned, forgot all about.
Here’s a thought. Give two good photographers the same subject matter and the same equipment and they will make two entirely different images. Given they are both good photographers, and that’s the important bit, the images will both be good. Therefore the question that the person who answers the telephone really needs to ask himself is this … “do we have a good photographer?”
They had the right idea, they just made the wrong statement … that’s all.