The Teckki Says

What does Thanksgiving and some photographers have in common? They can both involve shooting a turkey, and many times when it comes to e-commerce site images, some of the ones I've seen are definitely for the birds! See the photo below:

Which item would you purchase? Both pictures were taken by professionals. The one on the left was lifted from Amazon.com. I took the other picture. Why do you think the one on the left is more appealing?

O.K., I am not finished with picture I took, but most of you would not have achieved my results. One one side, you are looking at a can of cranberry sauce. On the other side, you can taste the cranberry sauce right from the page.

Let's talk turkey about photos you post on the web. If you are selling an item on eBay, or if the item is of little worth, then the photo on the right looks fine. If you are planning to operate a store, then you need to better show the customer what she's getting for her money. Pictures that convey emotion sell much better than pictures that convey "merchandise".

One thing I have come to understand in photography is what I see is sometimes quite different than what I am looking at. The picture below illustrates this point:

Often, our brains are only seeing the model on the left. When the picture is viewed, the camera reminds us what we were looking at, which is the picture on the right. They really are the same person, but the picture on the right was altered by software (See Portrait Professional and picture above).

We shoot turkeys more often that we think. But just like the food business, sometimes we can dress it up and salvage a meal. Keep that in mind when photographing images on your e-commerce sites.

This year, only one day separated Halloween and Election Day

Subject: Political Attack Ads - New York Gubernatorial Candidate Andrew Cuomo is the "victim" here.
Source: Huffington Post blog.

Nominated for: "He Got Me Good With This One!" award based on the fact that this attack ad is soooo good and creative, he'd better hope that no one takes it into the ballot booth with them.

It even scares me.

My how things have changed since his father was governor!

You can't pick your family or your neighbors, or where your website ads might appear!

Subject: Rotating Website Ads.
Source: Chicago Tribune - AP article on Chandra Levy murder trial, and testimony from former congressional boyfriend Gary Condit.

Nominated for: "And You Endorsed Me?" award based on the fact that the paper endorsed him, but didn't protect his ads from appearing in potentially adverse articles.

Round and round she goes, where rotating web ads stop nobody knows...

...unless they land on a page with a less-than-flattering story, and Illinois Senate Candidate Mark Kirk's ad couldn't have stopped on a worse page. Dogged by several reports of embellishing his credentials, Kirk's ad winds up on the page of a story where a former colleague, caught up in a high profile murder case, desperately tries to keep an affair with a congressional intern out of the limelight.

Lesson to be Learned: You can tell online publications where you don't want your ad to appear!

Last week, Illinois reported more than half of their schools are failing under the federal No Child Left Behind law. The verbiage in this ad might explain why.

Subject: Political Math
Source: Chicago Sun-Times Newspaper

Nominated for: "Political Math Makes Sense Only to Politicians" award based solely on the number reported here can mean anything or nothing, just like most things in politics.

This actually isn't Durbin's math, but the way the Chicago Sun-Times displayed it, Chicago should have no problems getting its' voters out, dead or alive or otherwise. To count these votes, all that needs to be done is move commas and decimal points as needed.