“Words, words, words… they’re all we have to go on,” playwright Tom Stoppard once said.
At ngo.media we agree with Tom. But we also know that words are not always enough.
You can spend days carefully crafting your copy until it conveys your charity’s message. Stick a poor quality photo next to it and you’ve wasted your time.
Here are six top tips to help ensure your images don’t let you down
- Use a professional photographer. If you really can’t find the budget, look for a professional who’s willing to donate their time, or a photography student keen to see their images in print.
- If you are going out and about with the office digital camera, you’ll need to ensure the shots you take are good enough quality to print. So check the settings. Press the ‘menu’ button and select ‘image size’. You’ll see a series of numbers such as 2048 x 1536 or a small, medium and large option. Always choose the highest setting it offers.
- Avoid cliched photos – cheque presentations (yawn…), your chief exec shaking hands with a service user, or big groups of staff standing in a row and smiling at the camera.
- Instead, show people DOING something – taking part in an activity or simply chatting with other service users or volunteers.
- Take plenty of photos, and make sure you include a range of perspectives. Focus in close on individuals and groups of people for the most part, but also take a few that give the ‘bigger picture’.
- Make sure there’s plenty of natural light and avoid any clutter in the background that might distract from the action. If possible, people should wear plain, bright clothing.
- Make sure your captions work as hard as your photos. Don’t just state who is in the frame, use that space to say something more. ‘Anne and her charity X support worker discuss job opportunities’, will mean far more to the reader that just naming names.
