Posted by Ian on 2008-11-24
in Tips
I was performing my one man show down in Devon over the weekend – the main reason why I’m a little late in writing my weekly blog. On the Saturday night I was staying in a lovely village in North Devon at a local B & B. The man putting me up was part of a group of local artists, specialising in pottery, furniture making and photography. They had recently put together a brochure giving details about their varying skills which was very well designed and constructed.
I was flicking through the pull-out leaflet commenting how nice it was. “But you are not in it yourself”, I remarked. “Yes I am”, he responded, and pointed to the relevant section. “I’m sorry”, I said, “I couldn’t see you for looking.”
The truth, however, was that I had seen it - but not associated it with my host. The reason being that the photograph of the person concerned must have been taken at least 10 years before. I just didn’t recognise him from his picture. Whether or not I effectively covered my faux-pas, I don’t know.
It is something I must confess I have always been aware of – that any photographs I use in my publicity should bear some resemblance to how I look in real life. It hasn’t really been much of a problem in the past, as I’ve always been someone who looks older in a photograph than I actually am. Indeed I’ve had a couple of bookers say to me, “oh, you look younger than your photograph!”
Now, however, my age seems to be catching up with my photograph, so I probably have to pay more attention to it. I’ve seen plenty of publicity photographs of performers where the discrepancy is alarming, so much so that I almost feel the booker would have a case for suing for misrepresentation!
I’ve become particularly aware of it again recently, however, as I’ve just had some new glasses. At an instant, therefore, all the photographs on my website are out of date! Fortunately the design change is not that significant, so I will probably get away with it – at least for a few more months.
But if I had any tip for anybody designing any form of publicity, it would be to make sure there is at least some alignment between your photograph and how you presently look.
I was flicking through the pull-out leaflet commenting how nice it was. “But you are not in it yourself”, I remarked. “Yes I am”, he responded, and pointed to the relevant section. “I’m sorry”, I said, “I couldn’t see you for looking.”
The truth, however, was that I had seen it - but not associated it with my host. The reason being that the photograph of the person concerned must have been taken at least 10 years before. I just didn’t recognise him from his picture. Whether or not I effectively covered my faux-pas, I don’t know.
It is something I must confess I have always been aware of – that any photographs I use in my publicity should bear some resemblance to how I look in real life. It hasn’t really been much of a problem in the past, as I’ve always been someone who looks older in a photograph than I actually am. Indeed I’ve had a couple of bookers say to me, “oh, you look younger than your photograph!”
Now, however, my age seems to be catching up with my photograph, so I probably have to pay more attention to it. I’ve seen plenty of publicity photographs of performers where the discrepancy is alarming, so much so that I almost feel the booker would have a case for suing for misrepresentation!
I’ve become particularly aware of it again recently, however, as I’ve just had some new glasses. At an instant, therefore, all the photographs on my website are out of date! Fortunately the design change is not that significant, so I will probably get away with it – at least for a few more months.
But if I had any tip for anybody designing any form of publicity, it would be to make sure there is at least some alignment between your photograph and how you presently look.
