I have been watching the wonderful blog Glum Councillors with glee lately.

It it absolutely true that local newspapers in the UK are stuffed full of pictures of councillors and all manner of local people looking glum. It is the classic pose to underline the alleged gravity of the story (God knows I over-emphasised a load of this stuff in my earlier career – bypass protestors, fears over poor streetlighting, a historic public privy suffering untold decay..).

And this all brings home a point about PR agencies – too many of us are bad or neglectful at coming up with good picture ideas. Yes print is less of a factor now, but good ideas for print pictures will still elevate a story’s prominence, give a far greater chance of inclusion and be more memorable. So why are trade media littered with cheesy grins and pictures of dull objects while some of the photo ideas the newspapers get from PRs showcase an utter lack of understanding or appreciation of a picture desk’s role?

Of course we’d never want glumness like in the first picture below for a client campaign. But still we’d want to avoid any lack of picture and sensibility appreciation that would spawn something like the bottom photo.

Tips for a better approach to photography by PRs:

1. Web or print: thinking about the different requirements
2. Thinking about what you’re trying to communicate, not what you’ve been asked to get a picture of
3. Tight, bright, upright (but provide landscape alternative for print if you can)
4. Caption writing is different to other types. Study it and work out how to communicate the picture’s message in less than 10 words
5. People make good pix, but make it clear who they are
6. If there’s a picture editor or desk staff, get to know them