Photos like this one above have many uses for this college. They are showing some of the facilities, the idea of a small campus (not many people in the photos), and other ways how this photo can communicate for the school.

One of the best things any organization can do is to create a stock photo library. These are photos people can use for a variety of uses.

If your organization has specific main themes or initiatives, you need images to help illustrate the concept. “Seeing is believing” is the old saying we all know to be true.

Your company may be in the service industry where you want to emphasize good eye contact with the customers. You would benefit from having not just a few but a variety of photos to use for your website, PowerPoint presentations, and training manuals, and even use these to drop into videos.

This college wants to emphasize they have trees and lakes on their campus. Even tho they are only minutes from downtown Atlanta, this campus offers a piece of nature and relaxation to its students.

Plan your photo stock shoots

Take some time to plan those photo stock shoots, and you will be amazed at how much of a resource this will become for the organization.

Start by making a list of your major initiatives. Maybe your company talks about a particular value-added concept you do that distinguishes you from your competition.

Create a list of things your clients are looking for that you address. For example, high school students looking for colleges look for a few things. See which of these might apply to your organization.

The small ensemble helps to communicate faculty to teacher ratio. It also shows they have the arts at this school, and it shows off the facility.

Things schools typically show.

• Teacher-student ratio. Most schools will try to have many photos of their faculty teaching one-on-one or in small seminars.
• Diversity. Most schools not only want to show what they are, but many will also shoot stock photos to recruit for what they want to become.
• Technology. Schools want to show their state of art labs and classrooms, which communicates to High School students they have an opportunity to work with different techniques.
• Living Spaces. Students want to know where they will live and play—showing dorm rooms, coffee shops, fitness centers, and more to help entice students to your campus.
• Community. While many schools do not show the community they are a part of, most schools that want to show all available to a student would like to show things from skyline shots, professional sports teams nearby, the arts, and anything that helps recruit their ideal student.
• Extracurricular activities. Students want to know about flying clubs, sporting clubs, or anything else that can complement their time in the classroom.

This living space in a women’s dorm is surprising to some folks and looks like a home atmosphere.

Getting ready for the shoot

• Recruit more models than you think you will need. The best reason to have more models than you need is many will have last-minute reasons they cannot make it. Another good reason is some models you picked may not look all that good in photos. Rather than taking many pictures of students, you will not use them. You not only get images you can use, but more photos you can use.
• Ask models to bring a change of clothes. Two or more outfits can help you when someone is wearing something inappropriate or so busy or loud that it draws too much attention to the photo. You may also want some solid-colored polo shirts to offer.
• Ask models to wear solids. Also, avoid red and solid white. The red draws your eye too much, and the white can sometimes be complex for printing later.
• When planning locations, remember to give time to transition from one place to another. It would be easier to use the same classroom and switch out teachers and students than to move from building to building. Unless there are some particular features in a school, you are showing off, showing a class is about showing the diversity of your students, the engaging faculty, and them enjoying themselves. Plan enough time for a photographer to pack up, move and then reset things like lights, tripods, and light stand.
• Give time for the situation to work. Give enough time once the photographer starts to shoot for people to get into it. Giving time means the photographer can shoot a while, look at the images and suggest changes (like switching out people) to get you usable photos.

School showing their TV studio facilities.

Your Stock Images are Old

Be very careful to plan stock shoots annually or every other year. Hairstyles and clothing styles will quickly date your photos. If your audience is the same, you will need to update more often. Years ago, colleges updated their materials every other year. They were mainly shooting for recruiting materials.

With today’s internet, you need to have even a larger stock file replenished more often. One organization I work with puts a new photo on its home web page daily. By rotating this daily, the number of people going to the website has increased. They are creating excitement by having people wanting to see what is new.

One photographer has about 175,000 hits daily on his blog, and the draw is a daily photo. Check out Trey Ratcliff’s site, Stuck in Customs. Having lots of images is an excellent reason to have more stock images to help drive people to you.

Product shots 

Don’t forget to have fresh images of your products as well. You will help create a mood and ambiance for your product line with photos.

Use as graphic elements.

When it comes to photos, they can be used as much for their graphics as for their content.

Some of your products can look cool. So be sure and get detailed shots into your library.

Close-up images can add impact to a presentation. But, of course, you can also use them as a background.

Keep it Current

A sound photo library you are constantly updating is one of the best resources for your organization.

These photo shoots will become your way of having visual images to compliment the initiatives and messaging you need to be doing daily for your organization. Call me if you need help. I can not only help in the shooting but help you create an online database for storage and searching.