Environmental what?

I was at a meeting today of Charlotte business owners.  This is a great group of people with one thing in common.  We are all business owners and we all want more business.  I am the only photographer in the group, which is good because I have all the photographic questions to myself.  On the other hand, it would be nice to have another photog to bounce questions and ideas (or as my wife calls them, hair-brained schemes) off of.  

In the course of today's meeting, it came up several times that there are many ways to promote your business these days and most of them are electronic in nature.  Whether it's Facebook, Twitter, or just your  old fashioned website, everybody wants to stand out and draw in customers.  

I am a big believer (obviously) in good photography on websites.  Nothing turns me off more than to look at a website with poor, grainy pictures that were obviously taken with a cheap point-and-shoot or with a cell phone.  Maybe it's just me but I would think a few dollars spent on high quality photos would pay dividends quickly when people visit your site.  I was asked many times what type of photography I do and the answer that always makes them turn their head like a dog hearing a high pitched noise is when I say environmental portraits.  What's that, they always ask.  

An environmental portrait is a portrait of a business owner, or worker in their everyday work environment, doing their everyday tasks.  It looks good to see the person in their "natural" environment and lends legitimacy to what they are doing and also how they are doing it.  The public thinks a person knows how to do the job better simply by seeing a photo of them doing it.  A picture of a plumber fixing a sink, or standing beside their truck gets much higher scores from focus groups than the same plumber in a standard headshot in front of a standard backdrop.

Here are a couple of environmental portraits that demonstrate the concept.


click any picture for a larger image.

This is Chris, a massage therapist, he's the owner of "Knead to Relax" I had shot a number of photos of Chris and the massage room but none of them were looking any good to me.  I said to him, "how about you jump up on the massage table".  He did and I liked this much better than the standard headshots and the pictures of just the room and the table that we had been doing.

This is Steve, the owner of Pandemic Printworks.  I took this shot at his grand opening as he was demonstrating how to screen print tee shirts.  Nothing special about the composition, but, it shows the owner, doing what he does best.  The colors pop, the machinery is cool, and there is a great place for a logo right in the center of the picture.




If you're looking for a way to promote your business, think about moving away from the old fashioned 8 X 10 glossy headshot framed on the wall and look to your environment for some answers.


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