The Importance of Great Photographic Ideas

Don't worry I brought my snappy camera...

Click on the images for a larger version

Great ad images are, most often than not, great because of the overall ideas or message that they illustrate.


Creation of a solid idea that can be portrayed in a visual are very hard to come by. The images in this blog are great samples of core brand messages that are easy to comprehend, and that is what makes them brilliant.


Next time you are thinking about an image for your product or service spend time coming up with a strong message that can me illustrated in a cool or innovative photograph.

Remember that Great Photography is created in the following order from most important to least important:
Core (Brand) Message
Concept to illustrate the message
Location and props
Character or fashion models
Lighting and special effects
Tinkering with the light
Stylists (food or clothing)
Pushing the shutter release


So if you have a photographer who you like to work with it is best to have them help you with the core idea as early on in the proses as possible. Being able to work with a photographer and brief them on a preconceived idea that has been approved by the client is a lot tougher than presenting an idea that the photographer has helped craft.

Personal Brand Ideas

Mirror mirror on the wall...

User generated media, blogs and discussion forums have changed the flow of information about your company forever. A new emphasis on reputation management, even for the tiniest of companies, is essential. The following list of covers a lot of the websites you can use to manage your personal brand.

Manage Your Identity

claimID.com - Works along with openID to verify your identity on multiple websites.

FindMeOn.com - Link all of your networks together and verify your identity so people know it’s your profile.

FreeYourID.com - Uses .name address to sign you up for sites.

Garlik.com - Searches the web looking for mentions of you that might involve identity theft.

MyOpenID.com - Use one username to verify your log in on sites that use OpenID - great for sites where you might otherwise have multiple log ins.

Spyshakers.com - Identity Management System that allows users to access their websites and passwords remotley.

TypeKey.com - Another provider of the OpenID standard.

WordPress.com - Sign up for a free account and use as OpenID

Manage Your Reputation

Naymz.com - Sign-up and invite your invite people to write reviews about you and your work.

Rapleaf.com - Look up your reputation, rate others, and they will be invited to rate you in return.

RepVine - Reference and reputation management combined.

ReputationDefender.com - A service that attempts to help you get things being said online about you removed

TrustPl.us - An online reputation service that ranks based on trust scores.

List of message board tracking services: BoardReader.com, ForumFind.com, Big-Boards.com, BoardTracker.com, iVillage, Yahoo Message Boards, MSN Money

Places to find groups to track: Yahoo Groups, AOL Groups, MSN Groups, Google Groups.

Monitor This allows you to monitor and track keywords over multiple search engines.

Keotag.com A service that allow you to search for tagged blog posts across multiple blog search engines.

Manage Your Online Profiles

Comwat.com - Put your online identities in one place to make it easier to show and find profiles

onXiam.com - This site lets you link all your online identities into one account making it easier for people to find you across the Internet.

OtherEgo.com - Another way to display you online profiles.

ProfileBuilder.com - Very function heavy profile builder that shows off the parts of your profiles you select.

ProfileMat.com - Pull all you profiles together and allow commenting on your profile mat page.

SimplifID.com - One ID for all your online profiles

SocialURL.com - Simple URL to show all your profiles

Venyo.org - Lets you add all of your online activities, including blogs and comments to one page.

Zoolit.com - A landing page to show all your social networks