Advertising

Advertising is a form of communication, it’s used to persuade people to buy products or use services from a company. Advertising is mostly used to drive consumer with a respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is common. Messages sent out through advertising, are using paid for by sponsors and viewed through various media including; newspapers, magazines, television commercials, radio advertisement, outdoor advertising or direct mail (these are known as mass media), they are also viewed through new media such as websites and text messaging.

As well as in fashion photography, commercial photography is used a lot in advertising, commercial photography through advertising can be used anywhere from selling a product through merchandising to in brochures or leaflets. Commercial advertisers often try to increase the use of their products/services through ‘Branding’; this involves the repetition of an image in an attempt to relate certain qualities with the brand in the minds of consumers. Non- commercial advertisers spend money to advertise through political parties, interest groups, religious organizations and governmental agencies.

Since the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, modern advertising has developed with the rise of mass production. In 2010, it was estimated that more than $300 billion in the United States and $500 billion worldwide was spent on advertising.

When it comes to advertising there are 5 main points advertisers have to think about for the adverts to be effective;

1.    Have a ‘stopping power’, to make people stop and look at it.

2.    Make an impression, if they make an impression on people, they are more likely to buy a product or use a service.

3.    Be understandable, making an advert understandable will appeal to more people as they won’t have a lot to think about.

4.    Include moving messages, if an advert has a message people are more likely to remember the message and then associated it with the advertisement.

5.    Have a ‘locking power’, adverts that have a ‘locking power’ will make the advert ‘lock’ into the audiences head.

Many techniques can be used in advertising such as; an appeal to emotion, associations and fear tactics. When advertisers use to technique to appeal to an emotion, they normally attempt to cover the emotions experienced by people in everyday life. An example of this is a women looking at a tray of diamonds in a shop window, as her husband stands from a distance smiling, the text on the advert reads ‘show your love’. This is an appeal to emotion and the need to please someone you love. When advertisers use association they try to associate their product with the people, values and lifestyles illustrated in the adverts. If the advert contained a man offering a ring to a women, in a luxuriously furnished apartment and the text reads ‘love has no price’. This would be associating the purchase of the diamond ring to wealth, and if the male and female were in a close embrace it would be associating love and romance. Using the technique fear tactics, advertisers attempt to sell their product by playing on our fears, they do this by basically saying if you buy the product the fear will end. An example of fear tactic is; a man and a women warmly embracing while displaying the diamond ring on her finger, the text reads ‘he just gave her a diamond. She thinks it absolutely perfect, she thinks he is too’. The fear tactic here is that if you don’t buy a woman a diamond ring, there will be a fear of rejection or unhappiness. These three advertising techniques can overlap in one advertisement, but there will be one main technique used.

Photojournalism

Photojournalism is a form of journalism which tells a news story through images created; this contributes to the news media. Photojournalism is usually only referred to still images, however, in some cases it also refers to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is mostly known from other applications of photography (documentary, social, street and celebrity photography, all work done for through photojournalism must be honest and impartial but still making sure the story is told. There are 3 points that have to be remembered when it comes to photojournalism;

1.    Timeliness- the images have to have a meaning in the context of a recently published record of event.

2.    Objectivity- the situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events they show in both content and tone.

3.    Narrative- the images merge with other news elements to make facts relatable to audiences on a cultural level.

 

Eddie Adams was an American photographer and photojournalist, who was mostly known for his prize winning photograph of a police chief executing a prisoner in the Vietnam War. Mr. Adams said ‘I wasn’t out to save the world. I was out to get a story’. This is exactly what he did by taking pictures of coverage from 13 wars, politicians and later portraits of celebrities. His photographs from the Vietnam War and poverty in American captured the moments of those there by photographing every detail. For example, the famous picture from the Vietnam War saw a man ben executed right in the middle road; it also saw the emotion and expressions of the people in the photograph so it makes you feel for the prisoner. You could associate Eddie Adams as a documentary photographer as he is showing moments from history with a story, however documentary has to be planned and Adams just took photographs from at different places of people and their surroundings.

Fashion

Fashion is a term used for a current popular style or practice; it is normally clothing, foot wear or accessories. Fashion can be anything that is current trend that someone wants to be or dress like. Fashion Photography is a genre of photography that simply just focuses on displaying clothing and other fashion items. Photography for fashion is normally done for advertisements or fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair or Elle. Over the years, fashion photography has been developed by enhancing the presence of exotic locations or accessories.

Fashion photography is probably well known for commercial photography because photographs show in adverts as well as editorial photography in magazines. Commercial photography uses a range of techniques; such as catalogue which tries to show the entire detail of clothing and editorial which shows the clothing in unusual ways.

Vogue magazine uses lots of editorial photography in their magazine. This photography lets them experiment with different locations/ props and make up a scene which the clothing/accessories fit into. Although some of the images Vogue produces are quite simple, it is still editorial as the audience doesn’t see the full shot of the product.

Fashion photographers use composition techniques, which structure the picture, for example, they use frame cards and the environment. Most professional fashion photographers use frame cards as it is probably the simplest element that has many different functions. One of its different functions is the ability to help you focus when setting up, it lets you separate the scene visually and look at it like it is a page from a book. When it comes to using the environment, paying attention to lines of direction is another useful technique, for example, it can easily lead the viewer’s eyes to the centre to a photograph, and fashion photographers have to consider lines of direction because it makes the fashion subject stand out in the picture. As well as lines of direction, another technique fashion photographers have to consider is light values. Contrasting between a dark tone and light tone will immediately lead the viewer’s eyes to the product.  Adding an illusion of depth to a two dimensional photography, using meeting lines, can multiply the effect by acting as lines of direction. This puts the subject of the photography in strong focus.