Photography For Content Marketers – Part One
You’re probably on this website to find out about writing.
Why is there an article about photography? Why is it one of a set?
Because when we’re writing, we need to think about the medium. If you’re writing for the internet, then you’re competing against a lot of different types of media.
If you own a website, you need to think about more than just the words.
This has been difficult for me. To get new information, I read. To organise thoughts, I write.
But not everyone on the internet works in the same way. And if you’re a website owner, you need to appeal to as many visitors as possible.
The Multi-Media Internet: Nobody Wants To Read
Cat pictures are the most popular thing on the internet.
Nobody wants to read. It’s why you’ve got YouTube celebrities and viral pug pictures.
People want to be entertained, and photography and videography are easily accessible, require less attention and take less processing to digest than the written word.
The written word is a slow-burn information exchange and pictures aren’t.
Less Anonymity = More Trust
It took me a long time to build my own personal website under my own name. I’ve had websites for years, and been a writer for years. Yet still I didn’t create a portfolio website.
One of the reasons is because I’m an introvert and the idea that people can read this and know who I am is a bit intimidating.
The second reason is because I want the words to speak for themselves. When it comes to getting advice online, I’ve always followed a simple rule – if it works, do it. If it doesn’t work, don’t. With my own advice, I want my readers to analyse me in the same way. If my advice is rubbish, ignore it (and me.) If it’s great, then you should follow it.
However, the internet doesn’t like that. You’ll get more traffic if you have an Instagram with your sunburned knees in front of a tropical backdrop. People will pay more attention to your words if there’s an accompanying jingle and video presentation.
Photography for writers is crucial because it builds a connection between you and a reader. Pictures also allow you to express humour, which is pretty difficult to get across with writing.
Most importantly learning photography for writers is important for trust because you can demonstrate that you actually use a product. This will put you in the top .00001% of all review writers online.
Photography For Writers Saves You Money
If you want to stay on the legal end of the spectrum, you’re going to have to buy stock images. Sure, you can steal pictures from a Google Search and use them, and you’re never going to have to worry about the owner coming after you.
Until you do.
When you write online, you realise quickly that people will ruthlessly steal your work. It’s even worse for photographers. This link tells a story about how one band tried to steal a photographer’s work, then abused him and set a mob on him when he asked for credit for the picture he took. I’m not even joking.
As the net tightens up, and content providers (like writers and artists) feel the pinch of competition, people are going to expect you to pay for using their images.
If you write books, then you pay for book covers.
If you’re looking to the future, you realise that photography, videography and music are going to become more important for writers. I already get clients asking me to include photos with basic article assignments as though they are some magic thing that comes from nowhere.
Most people don’t know that you can’t take other people’s work and re-publish it. If you’re a professional writer, then you need to know that you can’t.
Then you need to come up with a solution.
My suggestion is to get a camera and start taking your own photographs. When I released my first book, I made the front cover and back cover from scratch in Photoshop. It took forever. I hated it.
After releasing a couple more books, and paying for the covers, I decided to get better at doing it myself. If you make £1 a book and a cover design costs £100, then that’s a hundred more books you have to sell to break even. A stock image that costs £10 is still ten more books to break even.
A photo you’ve taken yourself is free, and you have the rights to use it an unlimited amount of times, without having to worry about accreditation, impressions or usage-policies.
If you think about writing a blog, then you’re going to need a handful of pictures for every post. That adds up even if you’re using $1 stock photos.
As a writer, every time you write (providing you keep the rights to your work) you’re building a library of assets. With photography, you’re doing the same.
Learning photography for writers saves you money.
The Learning Curve
“What about the time and cost of learning and doing photography?”
It really isn’t that tough. I’m not a photographer. I wouldn’t consider myself even an amateur photographer. I probably won’t ever. It’s a fun hobby. I’m not going to go pro. I’m looking to create my own content. It doesn’t take years to do that.
In fact, here is my first ever picture:
Clearly an Artistic Phenom.
Believe it or not, it took me hours to work out how to get my DSLR camera to work. I couldn’t get it to focus on anything more than two centimetres away. I thought it was broken. I thought I was a moron. It turned out it had a micro-filter on.
After that, we start taking nicer pictures:
At least it looks like something…
Then I went on a wander the next day, and was taking pretty decent photographs:
Just a Stately Home That Was Never Finished
They aren’t going to win prizes, but I enjoyed it and they look good.
When you want a basic image that fills space and interests the reader long enough to improve your “time-on-page” metric, a good camera will do the work for you. My Nikon D3200 gives me sharp pictures with clear colours. It has vibration reduction which apparently means my shaky hands won’t ruin the photo. It can be upgraded, downgraded and what not. It does portraits and landscapes and tiny insects.
It does everything I need it to, which isn’t what a guy working for David Attenborough’s next production does.
To summarise, if you’re a writer, you need to learn about photography and multimedia because:
- The internet is a multi-media experience. You’ll get more viewers if you use different media forms.
- You save money on stock photos, whilst building an asset, (Your own photo library.)
- You can convey more – humour, geography, character.
- You’re less anonymous and that builds trust.
- You only need to do basic stuff and so it won’t cost much or take too long to learn what you need to.
- You can add value to products/services and create new products and services. (More on that.)
What’s Next?
Now that this article has established why you need to learn photography as a writer, we’ll go through what you need to do in the next episode.
In fact, I’ll give you a rundown of the whole series:
Part One: Why You Need To Learn Photography For Writers
Part Two: What You Need To Start Taking Photographs For Your Writing Project
Part Three: Technical Stuff (Challenges an Amateur Photographer Will Face)
Part Four: How To Incorporate Photography Into Your Writing
I’ll also write a review on my camera, the Nikon D3200, including what I use with it to get it to do what I want.