Introduction to Photography Part 1

Transcription

1 ww Introduction to Photography Part 1 In this lesson, we are going to introduce you to using photography in social media, using the question and answer format The objectives for this lesson are: Understand why photography is important to your business web presence Choose images for social media Select a program to edit your photos Choose the correct camera for your needs The first question we are going to address is Why should I use photography for my agricultural business? The average user will visit a website for less than one minute, that s it! Engaging photography and video are often the only reason a user chooses to stay longer than one minute and actually look at the content of your site. Knowing that, we need photography to engage our customers. The next question we will address is, What are your options for getting images to use on your website? There are three ways to get images 1. Purchase images from a stock photography website 2. Hire a professional photographer 3. Take them yourself We will discuss stock photography first. On stock photo websites, you can search for a specific theme or image. Here, we are searching for photographs of Angus cattle. You can choose to search for only photographs or for an entire assortment of photographs, videos, and illustrations. It will then pull up images that are sorted by popularity. Once you have found a photograph that fits your needs, you can pay for the rights to use it.

2 Images from stock photography sites are - High quality - Easily searched - When compared to the cost of hiring a professional, they are affordable However, there are disadvantages to stock photography websites They are not original. When you search for an image, they are shown to you by popularity. In other words, they are displayed by how many times they have been purchased, downloaded, and used on the web or other print media. Another downside of stock photography is it can seem impersonal. Stock photography can t offer the personalization of photographs taken at your own farm, ranch, or business. A couple of stock video sites are o istockphotos.com o Shutterstock.com You may be thinking, why can t I just search Google and use free images I find? These images are someone else s and are probably copyrighted. You would never want to steal someone s land or livestock, and we don t want to steal someone s photography either. The second option for getting great images is to hire a professional photographer. - A good professional photographer can meet with you and develop a plan for photography. - They can capture images that are extremely high quality and unique to your business in a way no one else can. - Professional photographers with the right equipment and exceptional skill can be expensive, but you often get what you pay for. - There are image releases, contracts, and copyright agreements that must be signed beforehand. - If you do choose to hire a photographer, ask for a complete portfolio before you hire them to get a better understanding of the product that he or she will be delivering for you. You may be at the mercy of the photographer s schedule, which may be problematic if you are working with a time sensitive harvest or other events. This leads us to the last option for getting images of your business take them yourself. 2

3 - Taking your own photographs is free - It can be done around your own schedule - It allows you to truly personalize your product and online presence - It can be a fun and rewarding activity for you and your family! - Requires you to put some thought and time into learning how to take a great photograph - You will need a high quality digital camera - You will need to develop a basic understanding of composition, lighting, and image editing The next question we will address is What type of camera should I use? There is no need to constantly be purchasing a new camera every year, but evaluate the current camera you have. See if it is going to get you the quality of images that can compete with what your customers are going to be seeing. If your camera is more than 3-4 years old and has fewer than 8 megapixels, you might consider upgrading to a more current model. If you need to purchase a new camera, there are many options. Commercial photographer Chase Jarvis said it best, The best camera is the one with you. There is no rhyme or reason for purchasing a large and expensive DSLR camera if you are going to leave it at home and miss out on opportunities to promote your products, brand, or business. There are two basic types of cameras for you to choose between 1. Point and Shoot cameras 2. DSLR Point and Shoot digital cameras work exactly as the name implies. You point the lens at what you want to take a picture of and the camera thinks through the exposure and focus, taking the picture Point and shoot cameras have advantages and disadvantages over their larger and more capable DSLR counterparts. 1. They are easy to use 2. Affordable 3. Often offer good image quality for their price point. 4. Require very little knowledge of photography 5. Smaller in size and portable 3

4 However, their basic user functions can limit creative control and take a one size fits all approach to capturing your images. Point and Shoot cameras also have a difficult time in lower light levels, struggle in capturing movement, and an overall lower image quality when compared to the more expensive and larger DSLR s. Digital SLR s are the choice of professional photographers. These cameras offer the highest image quality. Many now come weather and dust resistant, which is a plus in agricultural environments. They offer the most amount of creative control to the photographer, which means the photographer has the ability to make the photograph look exactly how he or she wants to. These cameras perform great in low light and in settings where the subject matter is moving. Even though DSLR s offer exceptional image quality and user controls, they are considerably more expensive than point and shoot cameras. If you choose to use modes other than automatic capture, they will require some basic understanding of exposure. DSLR s are not small cameras, so their size may keep you from carrying them with and you may miss some photographic opportunities. You need to be committed to learning these skills in order to make the most out of your investment. The next topic we will address is How do I edit my photographs? All photographs, no matter how good, can use a little editing. Though you probably don t need to make many adjustments, simple changes in white balance, exposure, and contrast can drastically improve almost every image you take. 4

5 Remember, the entire reason for adding quality photography to your website and social media is to actively engage your audience and potential customers. With this in mind, take a few additional minutes to adjust each image accordingly. Professional, powerful editing software does cost money. Fortunately, if you are on a budget, there are several free online options or even subscription services to implement in your business photography. We will briefly summarize the two most commonly used editing programs while sharing a free resource. The most common and powerful tool for editing photographs is Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is the industry standard for photo editing and manipulation. In Photoshop, you can open an image as seen here and apply different adjustments. Here a level adjustment is being applied to get the correct brightness of a photograph. You can also change the image to black and white, change the colors, sharpen the photo, and more. You can do infinitely more in Photoshop than just change the color and exposure of an image. Here, we are going to select the grain truck to cut out. We can enlarge it and bring it closer to the foreground by using Photoshop s laso, copy, and paste tools. The clone stamp is a very popular tool in Photoshop that allows you to remove distracting objects in an image. When you are done with your image, it is a matter of saving the image to the location and the file format that you would like. For the web, you would want to select the save for web option. As you can see, the complexity of the program requires time and dedication to learning its features and will require an up to date computer to run the software. Until recently, the cost of this program was out of reach for everyone but the serious photographer. Adobe now only offers Photoshop through a subscription service of $20 / month in one year commitments. To view more of this software, visit You can download a trial version for 30 days to see if it meets your needs. Adobe Lightroom is another program that is incredibly common among professionals and enthusiasts alike. 5

6 Adobe Lightroom was designed on a simple platform with the goal of editing photographs accurately, powerfully, and quickly. Lightroom displays your photographs in panels like this. You can choose automatic editing functions from the library screen. You can also go to your develop panel for more selective control of exposure, color balance, and shadow selection. When you choose to save your image, you can choose the file settings and also the file size when exporting for use on Facebook. When compared to Photoshop, the user controls are much friendlier and the learning curve isn t nearly as steep. Lightroom does not offer the image manipulation options that Photoshop would. It is built more around adjusting the exposure, contrast, and general characteristics of a photograph. However, it is much more affordable than Photoshop and easier to learn. Just like Photoshop, you can visit and download a 30- day trial for free to see if this program suites your needs. If your budget or need doesn t afford you the luxury of purchasing editing software, there are many online options that offer free services for basic image correction. The free software that we will highlight in this tutorial is picmonkey.com As you can see with this screen shot from PicMonkey, you simply upload your images to the image editor. Once uploaded, you can apply basic adjustments to your images, crop, and rotate them. Now that your adjustments have been applied, you can save your pictures to your computer and upload them to social media. The next question we will be addressing is How do I select images for social media? A profile picture is required on most social media websites. Your profile picture is a direct representation of you and your business. Be intentional when choosing your business profile photo. It should elicit the images, feelings, and characteristics of your business. 6

7 Think of your profile picture as an image you would put on a business card. This will be the image that people see when searching for you or your business on sites like Facebook and Twitter. If you are trying to create a cohesive and uniform brand, consider having the same profile photo on your Facebook and Twitter pages. Most social media sites will automatically resize your images to use as profile pictures. The cover photo is another photo used in Facebook. It is a lot larger when compared to a profile photo. When selecting an image, use a unique image that represents your page and business. This could be a popular product, sale item, or an image that further describes the business. Be creative and experiment with images you audience responds to. Some guidelines to a cover photo are: 1. The cover photo should always be a horizontally aligned photograph that is at least 399 pixels wide. 2. It may not have more than 20% text. 3. The ideal size is 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall. In review 1. Quality and engaging photographs are important on your website because they give an image to your business and engage potential customers. 2. The best camera is the one with you. Only you can decide if a DSLR is worth the added cost. 3. There are many options for editing your photographs. Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom are great options, though they do cost money. PicMonkey is a free resource for you to use. 4. Choose a profile picture and cover photo that represents your business accurately. 7