Photography has become so much part of everyday life that people confuse the photographs that they take with their mobile phones and digital cameras with what trained photographers do. It is very often the case that these ways of taking photographs and using them for specific on line purposes is absolutely appropriate - for personal blogs and social networking sites and many people with no training take some excellent photographs.

 

Taking photographs for a specific purpose - with the goal of communicating ideas through the use of light, composition, colour and subject matter, on demand, is a different matter. Much of what good photography is about is planning, execution and, nowadays, the manipulation of the image with post-production software. This process enables a good photographer to create a series of images that is coherent and can be used to support the structure of the information contained in complex graphic frameworks - such as a website or printed publication.

 

In the areas of cataloguing products under controlled lighting conditions and preparing work that is to be published in the form of brochures, catalogs or even magazine articles and advertisements demands the services of a professional photographer with a well-equipped studio and the ability to provide files that meet high standards for usage in finished printing artefacts.

 

We provide professional basic photography for websites, layout and for mocking up pre-press roughs as part of an art direction process - but we are not professional photographers. We use photography in the same way many fine artists still use sketchbooks - to gather and collate idaes and information. What we do very well is taking on the role of editors - setting out certain criteria for a series of images to be used within a particular situation. We have done this for the town council websites we have recently created and we can work closely with a professional photographer to obtain the best results for your particular project if required.

 

Getting good advice about photography is an essential part of designing for New Media and many web sites fail simply because not enough attention has been paid to this area - don't make the mistake that you are Cartier-Bresson because your mobile phone gives you the ability to take snapshots!