Never Underestimate the Impact of a Single Image
(The full image is found at the bottom of this post)
Last year, while capturing images for my long-term client, CLG Displays, that would showcase their
fabulous, varied display at Calgary’s old City Hall and Municipal Bldg., I was challenged to best
highlight these cool ‘Christmas presents’ that were beautifully lit while situated on the fenced lawn in
front of the old structure.
I pulled out my favorite lens, PCE Nikkor 19mm, placed it on my Nikon D850 that was firmly set on
my Gitzo tripod, used my live view on the camera to find my desired settings of 5 second time
exposure, f20, ISO 64, hoping for extreme sharpness and perhaps some interesting light refraction (it
didn’t…) all while deflecting verbal abuse from some not so friendly ‘street people’, one guy in
particular.
I used the tilt/shift function on my lens to capture the full scene with clock tower while keeping my
main subject well in the foreground. This also allowed me to keep my verticals from diverging. The
warmth of the background against the cool blue, silver and white of the presents made for a
wonderful lighting contrast.
While capturing the scene I was thinking to myself, ‘This could in no way be as compelling with the
use of a mobile phone camera’. And yet….so many are now used, even for commercial purposes,
rather than properly taken by a professional photographer using optimized gear.
Now I wish I had in fact taken a separate image with my camera’s phone to convincingly show the
disparity between the two images. Having said that, I believe we all have taken enough images with
our phones and can likely relate to their shortcomings.
It distresses me to observe how so many company web sites are increasingly using images taken
from mobile phones that only serve to diminish the impact of an image, rather than positively portray
a subject or product to potential customers or clients.
