OUT OF SIGHT IS OUT OF MIND ... AND OUT OF POCKET: Why visual communication is vital

By Erika Kruger

Out of sight is out of mind!

So often, familiar expressions such as these convey important life and business lessons. 

Being out of customers’ minds can leave business owners seriously out of pocket.

Any business that is not harnessing the power of visual communication will soon discover that their services or products are not uppermost in the buyers’ minds. If our business or our brand is not in direct view of our target market, it is easily forgotten. People tend to stop thinking about things that they don’t often see.

Worse than being forgotten, is being lost in obscurity. If consumers have never seen you around, out of sight, out of mind actually means that you just do not exist and they have no idea that your business can be of service to them.

Now that badly affects the bottom line. 

It leaves you out of pocket.

Yes another stock phrase but one that boasts two different meanings these days.

The conventional use comes from an accounting term to pay from ones personal funds, something us business owners are going to end up doing if we don’t push ourselves to see and be seen quickly and effectively.  

The other, more recent meaning of being out of pocket often used in Silicon Valley and implying that someone is unavailable, that we are no longer in other people’s pocket. 

It also suggests that no-one can get hold of us in any way possible – not via email, not via telephone and not via cell phone. We have isolated ourselves.

But that may not be the only way we are playing hard to get.

 Feeling invisible? 

Our customers might find it hard to get what our business is all about.  Our brand message could be getting lost in:

•      too much text,
•      bad design and
•      poor quality, bland and badly chosen images.

Read also: IMAGES CAN MAKE OR BREAK A WEB PAGE: Using images to put the brake on a speedy click through

 Do you feel your business is being overlooked? Is your business playing hard to get?

Are your branding, marketing, advertising and PR campaigns failing to harness the power of high quality and appropriate images to keep you in direct vision of your customers?  

5 things you could do:

If you answered yes to those questions, this will help you improve your business' visibility: 

• Learn a new language. Become visually literate.

• Explore research done on visual communication, images as web content and eye tracking. Read also: Photos as Web Content - Jakob Nielsen

• Invest in the best visual communication team you can afford – designers, web designers, photographers etc. 

• Develop an image strategy as part of brand building and involve a professional photographer from the start. Read also: Photography in UX Design - Tim Bilsborough

• Involve a professional commercial photographer from the start.

Remain in your customers’ sight and minds so that you can find a place in their hearts.

PERFUME POWER TO THE PEOPLE - Land n Sand Digital Magazine Nov/Dec 2013 issue

By Erika Kruger

Perfume Power to the People - Fragrant Finery for the Festive Season

 

While perfume can be described as liquid art, perfume bottles can surely be considered objects d' art in itself.

And the ones available from Perfume Power SA are no different. 

Towards the end of last year Martin and I collaborated with Somerset West perfumista, Diana Rankin to contribute an article to the Nov/Des issue of the digital magazine Land n Sand.

The article told the story of this very successful e-commerce and perfume events company but Diana also shared some tips on how to select and apply perfume to complete that special outfit for end-of-year functions.

I wanted the images to convey the feeling of good cheer and the excitement of the festive season. My brief to Martin was to create the illusion of the perfume bottles actually attending a party.

So rather than shooting straight-forward product shots against a white background, Martin placed the bottles on clear glass and positioned multi-coloured Christmas lights in the background. 

He used a slow shutter speed with the 105 macro lens to prevent the strobe lights from overriding the much weaker fairy lights causing its effect to disappear completely. 

Different coloured gels were used to add variety to the shots.

I was delighted with the result. The images truly complemented the story I wanted to tell. 

And above all, both our clients were happy!

NEW YEAR IN CAPE TOWN IS CARNIVAL TIME!

By Erika Kruger

In Cape Town  New Year celebrations are associated with the Kaapse Klopse or Minstrels taking to the city streets in a high intensity burst of energy in their colourful outfits and variety of musical instruments. 

Later in the year the different troupes also participate in the annual Cape Town Carnival.

In 2010 Martin was assigned to documented the carnival in March and in June of the same year, he also photographed the Cape Town Street Festival held to welcome the 2010 Fifa World  Football event to the city.

Here are some of the images from those two memorable events.

SIGHT, SHIFT & PSYCHEDELIA - Land n Sand Digital Magazine Ed 3 Nov 2013

Cover image for Land n Sand Digital Magazine Nov 2013

Images by Martin Van Niekerk and text by Erika Kruger for article on Stellenbosch-based performance art group The Psychedelic Theatre and UV artist Martin Labotski of LoveUV 

Martin Labotski of LoveUV (Image: Erika Kruger)

Studio on Blaauwklippen Road (Image: Erika Kruger)

Martin Labotski preparing Zen's body art for the shoot. (Image: Erika Kruger)

BIZ PORTRAIT PARTY - Professional portrait shoot with a difference

By Martin Van Niekerk

We recently participated in a really enjoyable project. In fact it didn't feel like work at all!

The Biz Portrait Party was organised by in-bound marketing expert Bettina Horvath of My Biz Performs at The Workshop Space in Main Road, Somerset West to encourage business and professional people to invest in good quality and appropriate professional portraits for social media. 

While professional make-up artist, Candice Harker, was plying her trade and I was photographing the nine dynamic and beautiful business women one at a time, Bettina lead an informal discussion and question-and-answer session on the role of images in social media.

All the while we were treated to good coffee and eats. A party indeed!

What our clients said:

Bettina Horvath in Google+: 

Last week I organised the Biz Portrait Party with +Martin van Niekerk photography - the results are outstanding! It is so worthwhile to have a professional photoshoot done for online images, wouldn't you agree when you see these pics? 

 The end result: Nine professional portraits 

 The Biz Portrait Party in full swing

GOING FOR A PROFESSIONAL PORTRAIT SHOOT? 15 guidelines for great images

We have moved! You will now find this blog post on our new blog on our website. Just follow this link:

PROFESSIONAL PORTRAITS: 15 Guidelines for Great Images

SO, WHICH WAY WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO FACE? 5 facts about a portrait sitting your (conscious) mind was unaware of

‘So which way would you like me to face?’

A question every photographer about to shoot a professional portrait, is asked as soon as the model arrives in the studio.

The problem is that there is no simple answer to this seemingly simple question. Should the photographer:

• Position the client according to the lighting configuration he or she has set up to achieve a particular outcome or because the location demands it?
• Accommodate the client’s preference for a particular side? People often feel they have a good side that looks better on a photo.
• Take into account facial features that might make the image less aesthetically pleasing e.g. turning the model’s head so that a larger eye is further away from the camera?
• Listen to what neuro-anatomists and cognitive psychologists tell us about portraits?

What your subconscious knew but did not tell your conscious mind 

Here are 5 interesting facts about portraits that you probably don’t know. At least not your conscious mind but if you had to dig up some old photographs, you see that your subconscious had known a thing or two all along.

1. Most of the time we choose to be photographed with the left side of our face, facing the camera. Why? Not because of any cosmetic or physical attributes that we favour but because the left side of our faces show more emotion than the right and we are hard-wired to experience intense emotional responses more aesthetically pleasing. According to a study published in Experimental Brain Research the left side of the face shows more muscle movement in response to emotions. That is because the right cerebral hemisphere tends to be more involved in the perception and production of emotion than the left.1) And more emotion makes for better portraits, the theory goes.

2. The left-side bias has been known to naturalists and artists for a very long time. The theory of that which we seem to instinctively know about portraits, has been the topic of neuro-anatomy and art theory for hundreds of years. It was Darwin who first observed that the two sides of the face do not move and express emotion in the same way. His observations have since been confirmed by experimental and physiological studies. 2) For example in their study Turning the left cheek, researchers McManus and Humphrey indicate that 60 % of portraits painted since the 16th century show the left side of the sitter’s face. 3) We seem to prefer seeing and rendering a person’s more emotional side in a painted portrait. And the same goes for photographs.

3. But not always! We seem to have a different face bias for self-portraits depending on whether we are artists or non-artists. According to Bruno and Bartomini’s surveys of art books and exhibitions, show the majority of artists featuring the right side when composing a self-portrait, a phenomenon that is considered an art convention. Historically, painting or drawing a self-portrait required working of your own image reflected in a mirror. This method reverses the image you work from hence the right side bias. Nowadays artists most probably work from photographs which in the long is bound run to change the self-portrait posing conventions taught at art school. 4) This is what neuropsychologists Nicola Bruno and Marco Bertamini found when they observed people using smart phones to take ‘selfies’. Non-artists prefer the left side more often than the right even if you have to contort your body to get the shot. 5)

 4. Portrait type, social position and career choice also influence our choice of left or right facing portraits. When we are posing for a more informal family portrait when go for the more emotionally expressive left side. 2) But there are times when the sitter prefers to not show their softer, sensitive sides. It might be for reasons of status, for professional reasons or as a result of convention. Several studies have shown that natural scientists, chemists and engineers tend to show their less emotional right side ‘more in keeping with the stereotyped pose of a professional rationalist’. 3) Academics in the human sciences e.g. language and psychology departments tend to show the left side of the face probably feeling more comfortable showing their most emotional aspect to the world, unlike the engineers who want to ‘appear more rational and suggests that these hard scientists seek to display themselves to the world as the unemotional clichés of popular myth’. 3)

5. Sex may also help determine the cheek of choice - Male academics in the Churches tend to prefer showing the right cheek while female academics tend to show the left cheek more often. It is possible that the observed biases were the result of ingrained cultural and stereotypical gender roles depicting women as more emotional than men 2)

References:

1. Show Off the Left Side of Your Face for Better, More Emotive Pictures
2. How Academics Face the World: A Study of 5829 Homepage Pictures (2012)
3. Turning the Left Cheek
4. Turning the Other Cheek: Profile Direction in Self-Portraiture
5. Self-Portraits: Smartphones Reveala Side Bias in Non-Artists
6. Posing Intellectuals: Academic Profile Pictures Reveal More than You Think