Imagine a world without photos: textbooks void of illustrations, magazines missing cover images, and newspapers lacking documentation of headline stories. Sight is a powerful tool that I utilize as an event photographer in Virginia in order to fully grasp the world around us. As trendy as photography has become, it is so much more than a creative outlet or marketing tool—it is a documentation of historical events, a time capsule of where you came from and where you started.
Precious Reminders
If you are a parent, you know how much fun it is to pull out old baby pictures and recall what your towering teenager used to look like as a sleepy, eight-pound little human. There’s a reason so many people take pictures of their children each year on the first day of school. With genealogy studies becoming increasingly popular, family members feel like they have hit the gold mine when they find antique or historic photos of their family descendants. Photos give us a snapshot of what reality looked like for that time period—how did they dress? Do they have any physical features that have been passed down the line? Seeing history makes it tangible and real. We can be certain that the events we are looking at took place and that those people did indeed exist.
Not just a Story. Your Story.
The written word is influenced by the writer and can sometimes become muddled as information is passed down. Or it becomes misconstrued in order to fit agendas. But pairing it with photography makes a story—your story—more compelling, convincing, and intriguing. Images don’t lend themselves well to opinion, so they are vital resources for documentation. Remember your dad’s fishing story? When he described it, you imagined a fish the size of a house! But when you both realized that someone caught it on camera, it was actually more the size of his foot. Photography puts things into perspective.
A Crucial Tool
So why is excellent photography crucial for your company or event? Of course, you want high-quality photos to increase your online presence and brand awareness (and consequently client participation), but it’s more than that. Utilizing photography allows your company to give outsiders a real, but professional idea of who you are. What is your company involved in? What defines you and what have you accomplished over the years? Hopefully, that is something they want to be part of, too.
Our goal as photojournalists is to document the experiences and achievements of your company or event so that you can use them mile markers in your corporate journey as well as engage your current and potential clients in the work that you are doing. True to our profession, we keep it as real and candid as possible so that you can enjoy your moment. We capture life as it is happening.
As an Event Photographer in Virginia, I know the crucial importance of proper documentation through the use of photojournalism!