When I just started out as a young PR officer for a mid sized environmental think tank in the 1990s, photos were a big a deal. Buying stock photos was expensive. Shooting slides or film and getting it developed was a pain, and let’s not even talk about scanning. Printing them in our newsletters and magazines was expensive. When I developed that organization’s very first website, Internet access was almost entirely dialup and pictures clogged the pipes, so to speak.
None of this is true anymore, so there is NO EXCUSE for all the text-heavy and drab print and web publications I see you producing out there (you know who you are). How did you ever get the misguided impression that Americans like to read?
Without further ado, here are three great ways to get foolproof photos for your next PowerPoint presentation or print or web publication:
Get Them Cheap from iStockphoto.
iStockphoto has a gi-normous collection of photos, graphics, animations, video, and audio clips that they sell for just a buck or five apiece. Because the photos are from professionals and serious amateurs, there are many many great shots like the one above: big, beautiful, expressive, eye-catching faces. Click the link below to explore the collection. (Note: iStockphoto is a business partner and they pay me a modest referral fee if you buy anything).
Get Them Free from Flickr
The online photo sharing site Flickr has a bazillion photos, and often the photographers who submitted them are happy to let you use them under a Creative Commons license. I use lots of Flickr photos, but you do have to spend a little time to save a little money: You have to sift through more chaff to get to the wheat, so to speak, and you have to learn the ins-and-outs of the conditions under which you can use the photos.
Visit Flickr for free photos you can use in environmental advertising, outreach, and other communications projects.
Take Them Yourself
If you’ve bought a new cell phone in the past two years, it almost surely has a camera on it. So use it! The pictures will be good enough for websites, emails, online ads, and social media profiles, although probably not good enough for the print version of your annual report. There’s no zoom on your camera phone — and that’s one more reason to get in close and fill the frame with big, beautiful, expressive, eye-catching faces.
A picture is worth a thousand words! So follow the Water Words That Work method: Assemble your photos before you start writing, and take more time and care with your photos than your writing.
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Yes, yes, yes! Use more photos, fewer charts, less text ~ convey your message Hemmingway-style: six words to a Power Point slide or less, think visual when doing brochures and posters, and even press releases! People stop to read an article when their eyes are snagged by a “sticky” photo!
Don’t confuse what sounds good with facts. Recently I had a good PR guy tell me that a new fountain was environmentally frindly because it used recycled water. Well It doesn’t it does recirculate the water which is significantly different from recycling water.
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. –Daniel Boorstin