Political Photography

Political Campaign Photography Shoots Are Worth the Money

Good political campaign photography is a must.

Good political campaign photography is the cornerstone of a quality communications program. We’ve all seen bad political advertising. It’s a kind of bad that transcends the traditional meaning of the word. But it doesn’t have to be all European stock photos misused in Kentucky or stock photos of supposed endorsers (good grief, do NOT do this!). We can do better.

Make Sure Custom Political Photography Matches Your Campaign Strategy

Do Political Mailers Work for You?

As I wrote a couple of years ago, political mailers haven’t gone the way of the dinosaurs – they’re still a very effective method of communication for both persuasion and GOTV efforts. Political mailers may not be as sexy as the world of digital, but here are a few reasons to hang onto mail a while longer.

5 Easy Tricks for a Good Campaign Photo Shoot

When you’re out in the field on a campaign photo shoot, it’s pretty common to hyper-focus on one area of the shot and neglect the rest of the image. You might spend so much energy on getting a believable expression out of your subject, that you completely miss the offensive graffiti in the background. With that being said, Photoshop is a great tool. Photoshop makes it possible to get rid of most of these offenses—I should know, I have—but it can end up costing a lot, or there might not be enough information in the photo for your artist to fix it believably. To prevent these seemingly unfixable situations, check out some of my tips for pulling off a great campaign photo shoot!

Political Photography Matters - Before You Photoshop—Think Twice!

Technology is truly an amazing thing. We have all seen political photography evolve with the advent of digital photography and the wonders of Photoshop. Photoshop can work wonders for even the most photo abject among us. When done right, you can use Photoshop to take a photo that has mediocre lighting and windy hair and turn it into a dazzling cover photo. But there’s a big difference between straightening a tie or fixing wrinkles in shirt and changing someone’s look completely.

Dont Skimp on Political Campaign Photography

Political campaign photography matters. The quality of the photos provided for mail, walk cards, etc., are crucially important. Nowadays, everyone is used to seeing glossy, vibrant photos on screen, and assume they can grab a digital photo off the Internet and include it on their campaign lit. They are often surprised that the photo is not as clear, crisp or vibrant as the on-screen versions.

Political Campaign Photography Matters: Do NOT Wear Your Campaign T-shirt, Or any T-Shirt, to Your Photo Shoot

Running for office requires great political campaign photography that yield a set of great campaign photos. Last year’s holiday card just won’t cut it. Luckily, most candidate campaigns can get away with just one day of shooting, which means when you hire a photographer you can generally just pay a flat day rate, instead of a potentially costly hourly rate.  Here are some other tips:

A Beginners Guide to Putting Together a Candidate Photo Shoot

So, you are going to put together your first candidate photo shoot, great! As we’ve written before, producing custom photography is one of the best ways to increase the impact and appeal of your political direct mail. But where do you begin? Well, there’s a lot to do, and if you don’t prepare in advance, chances are your campaign shoot won’t go that well. Below is a beginner’s guide to organizing a candidate photo shoot that will hopefully help you start planning.

Everything You Were Afraid to Ask About Political Direct Mail Printing—The Final Installment

In previous installments of this series we covered finding a printer, managing schedules, specifying paper and digital vs. offset printing. This week is the final installment of the series and we’re going to talk about photos, file preparation and proofing.

Political Campaign Photography: Those Photos Aren't Free You Know!

Photos are a great way to enhance your communications. We work to use custom political campaign photography and custom photo shoots for nonprofits and organizations whenever we can but based on budget and timing it is not always possible to do a shoot. So many time rights managed and royalty free photos are your only options.  Knowing that you pulled an image from a blog that included an attribution line or grabbing a high-resolution photo from a Google image search are not great ideas and may well come back to bite you in the end.  Before you send something out into the world, it’s imperative that you know where the visuals came from originally and what you’re allowed to do with them.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the differences between these types of photos to keep you making great work and out of trouble.