Practice what you preach...

Practice what you preach…

…despite that damn double chin!

In addition to serving speakers, authors and other expert-based business owners, I also run a photographer educational community with co-founder, Maurice Jager. 

It’s called Screw The Metadata, and it teaches photographers how to create a memorable and referable online presence. 

Recently, we renovated our website and landing page promoting an upcoming workshop.

Maurice and I have been running the community from two separate continents (he lives in the Netherlands and I’m in NYC), and we only see each other once a year, so it’s hard for us to create image content that we can leverage to promote STM. 

During his visit last year, we had a photographer friend snap some photos and video of us together, and that’s pretty much all we have at our disposal to use.

One of the images that we inserted into our website and landing page is this one:

My initial reaction when I look at this photo is that I want to immediately crumple it up into a ball and toss it directly into the garbage. 

Why?

Because all I can stare at is that horrendous double chin. 

When I look at the photo, it  takes me back to a much darker time in my life where I was 

overweight, self-conscious and extremely uncomfortable in my own skin. 

By “darker time in my life,” I’m referring to roughly the first 30 years or so of my life, so it wasn’t exactly a quick blip on the screen. I put in quite some time walking around with this dark cloud and shitty attitude weighing me down.

Back then, the last thing I wanted to do was be reminded of these feelings through a photo. That’s why I'd act like a pissed off, drunken, celebrity swatting away paparazzi whenever someone wanted to take my picture.

Hated cameras. Hated pictures. Hated myself.

So, why would I use a photo that would take me back to a time where I would be reminded of all these crappy, negative emotions?

Because this is my biased opinion and everything else about the photo is awesome.

It’s two photographers looking over a photo on the back of the camera on the West Side Highway while smiling and laughing on a bright sunny day. 

As the leaders of the Screw The Metadata community, we need to leverage images that visually punctuate the sentiment of collaboration, creativity, trust and a “we’re here to help you” vibe. 

This image, despite my personal feelings, conveys that type of emotion in spades. 

The activity of the photo combined with our happy expressions far outweigh my annoyance with the double chin. 

Or put more simply, everything else in the photo inspires me to get over myself and stay focused on the bigger picture. 

And this sentiment is exactly what I preach to my clients when we review and select images from their branded lifestyle portrait sessions. 

During that portion of the session, I have to exhibit a lot of tough love and remind clients that whatever hangups they have about themselves, their audience is not paying attention to the same things that they are. 

For example, I showed a colleague the photo, and he loved it.  I then expressed my reservations about the double chin, and immediately responded, “oh wow, I didn’t even notice that until you pointed it out to me.”

It’s not that I needed that validation to keep the photo on the STM website, but it reinforced a very important point:

Our audience isn’t looking for perceived imperfections. They’re more interested in the overall sentiment of the image and how it helps tell our story.

It’s his reaction that reinforces why I practice what I preach with my clients.

As a result, don’t skip past images that will create a strong emotional resonance with them because you are hung up on something with your appearance. Those photos are extremely valuable in visually punctuating the sentiment of who you are, who you serve, and why you do what you do.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you post images that are grossly unflattering.

A good rule of thumb to follow when determining whether a photo should stay or go is if there are any distracting elements in the frame that will take away from the overall sentiment of the photo. In many cases, these distracting elements that drive you crazy aren’t even on your audience's radars.

As a result, keep an open mind.

There is a lot more room for finding the value in an image than what your first impression might say to you. 

That doesn’t mean that every image you take is a winner, but most of them are not losers in the way your prejudiced mind sees it. 

The next time you have a branded lifestyle portrait session, keep that rule of thumb in mind and don’t default to hunting down all of your perceived imperfections.

Allow the photographer to provide you with an unbiased opinion of the image before you beg him/her to hit DELETE.

Don’t prevent yourself from showing up in your photos the way you do in real life.

Are you in need of a photographer who will offer you tough love and serve as your voice of reason when it comes time to review and select your image content?

I would be more than happy to help you with that. 

Set up a call with me and let’s see if we’re a fit to work together.

PS - For those of you who aren’t in the know, I mail out these blogs 3x a week, and lemme tell you, they’re a real party, so, if you’d like to get in on this, sign up for it here and I’ll throw in a free gift for you, because I care, :)