Strong Corporate Photography Requires the Human Element

Brands implement many tactics in achieving their marketing goals, one of which is often creating and publishing strong images of their business in-action. Instead of getting into the nitty-gritty of the creative processes, technical details, or publication platforms, this article is about the common thread that most corporate photography contains: the human element.

First and foremost, people don't unconsciously care about 'brands', they care about 'categories'. They aren't interested in 'Nike', they are interested in 'shoes', then they think about what they need to do with those shoes, what they think about the brands that match with their needs....and then ideally they think about 'Nike' (if you're Nike, that is). That process happens over and over again, for each category, including the one your business is in.

So back to the human element. Why do we focus so heavily on the human element in corporate work? Because just like the fact that people don't unconsciously connect with brands, they do, however, unconsciously connect with people. Connecting the brand with people attracts the viewer's attention without them really knowing why they are interested in what they are seeing. The second layer to great corporate photos is adding the element of 'action' into the equation. What does it look like when 'fill in the blank' is at work? What do they do?

Notice, these next two images contain snippets of the human element, and not the entire person. We don't need the entire person to make that personal connection, we just need a little part of them to add context.

There's a reason corporate photography is still one of the most sought-after methods for brands to market to their audiences, even in this day-and-age of user-generated content. There's a time and place for user-generated content, just like there's a time and place for branded content and corporate photography with high production value. Maybe that’s a topic for a future article…