
This is something for the checklist. I try to remember it, but forget it too often. The thing is really simple, you should always take a couple of really unsharp, out of focus, and generally fuzzy photos when you are hired to photograph on location, for example at your clients office.
I don’t know why I figured out this so late in my career, but the photo above with absolutely no focus in it whatsoever is very, very useful for most of my clients. They can use it as a background, toned down behind some text in a layout, or crop it and fill out some empty space on their web site or in their annual report.
All it takes is just a switch to manual focus, overexpose it a bit and you will produce bonus photos you can include in every delivery without a lot of work. You can either send it together with the photos they ordered, or send it later as a gift if you need to have an excuse when asking for more work.
It takes a little more work to get unsharp background that are useful for compositions (like these business portraits on fake backgrounds I have been doing for a couple of clients), but having something from your clients office beats trying to find a generic stock background.
A photo with no focus is best done in the camera, I think. You can achieve a similar effect using Photoshop and Lens Blur (or some other blur tool), but it is even faster to switch off auto-focus and compose it as unsharp. The photo above is not optimal, try getting bigger areas with no details in the photo (I think stock agencies call that copy space, where you can put text), and the image will be even more useful.
Just a tip, and for me to remember.
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C’mon, I hardly managed to take sharp pictures and now you’re telling me that it’s the wrong way? 😉
Seriously, interesting point. I would let their designers do it in PS but some clients may have no designers in their back…
Good idea. Thanks for the tip Stefan!
Great tip! Simple but incredibly high in benefit/cost ratio 😉
I think that sometimes we risk to get lost in a sort of “showing off technique” when we run an assignment; when it happens, we forget the 99% of our clients are *not* into lighting, pixel-sharpness, zero detail-loss everywhere in the image and so on. They actually *need* (and like) raw / grit / muddy / “technically incorrect” (up to *a certain* degree) images. Consider the incredible success of “vintage” visual style (i.e. loaded with color and geometric aberrations).
Great Tip.
Great Idea.
Just unleashed a new direction in creativity in stock photography and other projects.
😀
Excellent!
Very good idea. Thanks Stefan!
Thanks for all the comments,
this is just one way of getting more material from every photo assignment. I often want to get it done as quick as I can, but shooting some details and some blurry photos can be worth a lot later. You don’t have to fix them directly, but having them in the archives makes it a lot easier to get back to the client later for more work.