When Muz from transport and logistics company Muztrans, contacted us about creating a new website for the logistics firm, he told us it needed to be ‘current, different and eye-catching’. We explained that good photography would be key and recommended Mimi Van Praagh, who has a studio next to our office in Tunbridge Wells. We’ve worked with her many times before and knew she’d deliver.
Mimi spent two days with the team and their vehicles, achieving some breathtaking photography at the company’s site in Erith, Kent, and in central London with some well-know landmarks in the background. Muz says:
“Having these shots has made a real difference to our website.”
You can read more about our work with Muztrans Case Study.
While the Muztrans team wanted good photography to make their website engaging, there are a number of reasons why it’s important to prioritise photography:
Potential customers want to feel that you care about your business and are investing in it. Good images reflect positively on your credibility and highlight an investment in the user experience. Visitors are more likely to stay on your site if the imaginary you’ve chosen is engaging and of a high quality.
If you have invested in your brand, then you need to embrace photography which reflects that. Images you introduce on your website should align with your brand identity.
We’ve often said that our case studies are the most visited section of the Target Ink website and that’s because they tell a story. Photography also has the ability to do that.
Well-optimised images can also improve your website's SEO by attracting organic traffic through image search results. Alt tags, captions, and file names can all be optimised with relevant keywords to improve visibility.
Another advantage of commissioning photography for your website is that you can be 100% sure of the origin of those photos. Over the years, we’ve had people send us images they’ve found on the internet, saying they are ‘in the public domain’ but it’s not as simple as that. While they are unlikely to be high enough resolution, they are most likely owned by someone else.
Copyright can be a grey area, but we’d suggest you never share photos – on your website or through your company’s social media channels – unless you are 100% sure who owns them. There are photo libraries online – such as Pixabay – which offer free photographs, while you can also buy photographs from reputable online sources.
Interestingly, under law, the copyright for photos lies with the photographer. There are, however, two exceptions; if the photographer is an employee of the company the photos are taken for, although this is a slightly grey area; and if there is an agreement that assigns copyright to another party. Even the copyright for photos taken at an event you’ve organised does not ultimately lie with you (rather with the photographer). However, if you’ve paid a photographer for the photographs and you’ve keep to your side of the bargain, such as only using the images you’ve paid for, there’s unlikely to be a problem.
Sourcing some great images isn’t the end of the story though, they also need to work on a website. Nowadays we view websites on many different devices – from large screens to laptops, phone screens and tablets. What might look like a fantastic landscape image, with a beautifully positioned castle on a large screen, could just appear like a landscape with no castle at all on a mobile.
As web designers, we need to understand the Rule of Thirds, a compositional principle that helps us to create web pages which look engaging and balanced on any device. It involves dividing the image into a 3x3 grid and positioning key elements – such as that castle – along these gridlines or where they meet. To do this, we need photographers to understand that principle as well and make sure that any key elements are pretty central, so we can crop images without losing anything crucial. If this isn’t achieved, then a team photo which looks good on a big screen, could end up with everyone’s heads being cut off on another device.
For people shots, this means leaving plenty of room around photos and this is particularly key when it comes to images on the ‘meet the team’ page. We’d also suggest that you use a photographer with a studio for any team photographs, so you can make sure that everyone has the same background on the images and they are lit in a similar way. This is also useful for continuity, when somebody new joins the team or a team member wants a new photograph.
If you’d like to discover more about photography and your website, get in touch with our team at Target Ink on: 01892 800400.
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