How Thandie got her wedding photographer. (1)
Thandie 2009. Copyright Knut Skjærven.
It was The Day of Obama. October 2, 2009. Copenhagen, Denmark.
I did not get closer than his big black beasty car, but that is ok since I got a good shoot of both Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, the Danish Queen and the Prince Consort Henry, the day before. I was on the way back to my car parked not far from the main entrance of Hotel D’Angleterre in the midst of Copenhagen, when this young voice spoke to me from quite close. I had not seen her before she spoke:
Are you a professional photographer? You look like a professional photographer with that camera. Have you anything that you need to do tomorrow?
I looked at her: I could say “yes” and I could say ”no” since I am not a professional photographer all of the time. Only when I get paid for it. So I went for the middle. Well, not exactly, but I can shoot some pretty good pictures from time to time. Why?
I am getting married tomorrow and I need a wedding photographer. Could that be you? I simply have forgotten all about having a photographer. I’ve been so busy. Then I saw you. If you don’t come we will have no photographer for our wedding.
The voice belonged to a beautiful black woman. Mid twenties, dark skin, black hair and a smile that did not seem to want to leave her face.
I looked at her. A bit puzzled. In Denmark it is not that common that strangers approach each other on the street, so how can I be sure that you aren’t just pulling my leg. Besides, I don’t shoot weddings. I never have, so I am afraid that you have to find another photographer.
But you are a professional. You look very professional to me. If you don’t come to my wedding we will have no photographer. She kept insisting. Have you anything else to do tomorrow that could prevent you from shooting my wedding?
I said that I didn’t. Because I didn’t.
It is at Gentofte Rådhus at 10.00 tomorrow morning and there will be a reception at Lighthouse Hotel (name changed) at 12.30. Have you got time to go there as well after the wedding ceremony? Maybe you could stay with us for a couple of hours. Please come and shoot my wedding. It is too late now to get another photographer. So you need to come. Can you promise that you will come?
I’ll think about it. I’ll give you a call.
Can I ask you what you charge?
Well, what I charge? I gave her a price by the hour.
You can call my husband if you don’t believe me. His name is Henrik.
Is he Danish then? Are you marrying a Dane?
Yes, he is. You can have his number and call him now.
No need for that.
I could give you an advance to make sure that you come tomorrow. Can I be sure that you will be there?
No, you can’t. Most likely I will not be there.
What could I say: What is your name then, and I need your phone number as well. I need to do some checking before I will say yes to this. Could you write if down for me? Have you got a piece of paper?
On a piece of paper she wrote Thandie, her last name and her phone number. And when the wedding was and where is was.
And what is your name? she asked. And do you have a phone number as well? Oh no, I thought. Let me check your story first, and I will call you. You don’t get my number. I will call you.
She went off in a taxi shortly after. I got a chance to look at her from I distance. She was a good looking girl and she wore good cloths and light blue rubber boots. I could see that.
And I was turning into a wedding pro. Maybe.
Later that night I told the story to Kirsten. She was greatly amused and she said of course I must go. It is very exciting to meet someone this way she said, but I insisted that I would not go. Of course she is not only pulling your leg. Why would she?
I am not a wedding photographer. I don’t want to have this responsibility, and I will not go. Have you any idea how difficult this is?
Of course I will not go even if Gentofte Rådhus is just up the street, and I know Lighthouse Hotel pretty well. However, can’t be that bad, can it? The places are certainly right. But I won’t go. These things just don’t happen. Not this way. And I will make a mess of everything. You need trained people to shoot weddings. Lamps, tripod and all.
Shit.
I picked up the phone late that night. Hi Thandie it’s your photographer. I have decided to come to your wedding tomorrow, but you have to call me back and confirm that there is a wedding. I need you to call me tonight so I can prepare this a bit. I expect you to call me if you want me to come. Thanks.
Thandie did not return my call that evening. That was late The Day of Obama. October 2, this year. And besides I don’t do weddings.
(To be continued).
Prelude: How Thandie got her wedding photographer!
The Bride. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.
The story is great and coming here soon.
Barebones Orchid
I am a couple of posts behind schedule. I suggest you enjoy this photograph until next time.
By the way, have you ever wondered why some objects are seemingly better for visual communication, than others?
And another question that you may want to ask yourself; is there any causal relationship between what is beautiful, and what works in communication? I don’t have the answer, but maybe you have? Please give me a clue.
Have a good weekend.
Barebones Orchid (c).
The simple truth, however, behind this post is, in fact, that I am just trying to show off my new lens 
Hope you don’t mind. Barebones Communication is a very tolerant blog, it seems. The name of the lens, that delivered this picture, is Zeiss Planar T* 1,4/50 mm ZE. So now you know. And besides, I am trying to pull some photographers to the blog.
Brief Tribute To A Red Car
- Brief Tribute To A Red Car. Copyright 2008: Knut Skjærven.
Brief tribute to a red car.
Just to remind you of Roland Barthes’ connotation procedures. His article from 1961 The Photographic Message tells the story. All but one, of his 6 procedures, have so far been treated on barebones. It you want to read the posts, you can start right at this page. Just follow the links.
2. Pose
3. Objects
4. Photogenia
5. Aestheticism
6. Syntax
Which reminds me that I have to write a post on his ”syntax”, as well. Not forgotten.
And while you are here: Don’t forget to listen to U2’s No Line On The Horizon. The reviews haven’t been all that good, but listen to it a couple of times and I am sure you’ll get over it. Let you cruise over the horizon, indeed. In a red car. In a masterpiece.
Best cruiser from the album is Moment of Surrender.
Good luck with it.
Library Thing. (Roland Barthes: Image, Music, Text, pages 15-31, Fontana Press 1977, UK. Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath)
Notebook Brief: Gabi, Frank, Mia und Max T.
I had a chance to visit Germany last week. I saw a couple of these posters once more. Along the highway, and in the cities. Runter vom Gas.
The picture below is shot in Berlin in March 2008, and it has been stuck in my mind ever since. I have been trying to get away from it. However, last week, was a reminder of a message that needed showing.
Tell me, in terms of denotations and connotations, why is this message, imo, so incredibly strong? Use other barebones tools, as well, to build your argument. I will join in shortly, but right now it is your turn to use the barebones tools to figure out the strenght of this message.
What does “Runter vom Gas” translate? Simply “Down by Gas”. Very down.
For more information on the campaign go here. Or try this commercial to really get in the mood for impressive advertising. Go here for extensive campaign downloads, but please notice the restrictions for use.
More on notebook briefs.
Second Advertising Fundamental: Dominant Mood.
It can come as no surprise, that the importance of one unified impression fundamental sets the stage for the rest of the fundamentals that Schwerin and Newell points to in their research. And yes, the fundamentals are derived from research into more than 50.000 ads and TV-commercials. So these fundamentals then are much more than one man’s (or rather two men’s) grand tale of what works, and don’t work, in advertising. Make no mistake here. These research results sticks to efficient communication. Not as a bible, but as a kind of default setting for persuasion. You can always go against these rules of persuasion, but I would consider that as risky business.
In this research, Schwerin and Newell found that there was yet another a common denominator for successful persuasion in marketing.. Successful campaigns fall in one of two opposite poles of persuasion: they are either emotional or logical in their “argument”.
What does this mean?
Sometimes the easiest way to explain a thing is telling a story of what it is not. The argument here does not imply that you need to rid every emotional element from a logical advertisement. That is hardly possible. And, it does not imply that you need to get rid of all logical hints in an overall emotional advertisement. This is hardly possible either.
The lesson to be learned seems to be that you need to pick your main road; either logical or emotional. And you need to stay on that road as best you can. That can sometimes take some effort. You need to know what means you have to your disposal for staying on the road. These means could easily be some you find in the barebones toolbox. For instance, it will help you a lot if you are aware of the difference between denotation and connotation, when you draft you concept and later on, the specific layout for the e.g. print ad. You can use gestalt factors to hold things together (text and main visuals).
When you chose your main road you should chose one of the two options mentioned; emotional or logical. Do that, and you chose a dominant mood for your persuasion. And advertising is about persuasion of people.
Let’s be more specific.
I need your help in imagining the following picture (sorry I do not have one in the real). I need you to imagine a white refrigerator. About 1.80 meter tall, and 0.60 meter wide. Doors open so you can see the empty shelves. (It is a brand new refrigerator. Just unpacked).
Do you manage this? Are you able to smell it as well, and sense the depth of it? (You will be amazed of how many people, that will not be able to imagine such a simple scene, but I bargain that you are not one of them. So, I continue).
Here, then, you have this imaginary brand new and very white refrigerator, right? Next step: Now you will image a newspaper and reading it a Sunday morning. On the third page is a picture of that same refrigerator, that you have just imagined. The text that sits above of the picture reads like this: “Be there Sunday before 01.00 p.m, and you get this Siemens for half the price“. The text body goes on telling you about the size of the refrigerator, how good it is to cool your wine, milk and groceries, how cold it freezes, that you don’t have to de-ice it ever, and that it, in terms of energy, will help the polar bears to stay on the North Pole in stead of in the North Pole Zoo.
Such an advertisement, may indeed raise you emotions, but in terms of dominant mood it is riding the logical main road. You build up an argument, and you stay with that argument. The main string in such an argument could be size, price or polar bears. Or it could be something else. It am sure that you get it
Now to the emotional advertisements, and the second of the two main road available within the scope of dominant moods. Let me see if I can find a suitable picture so that this post will not end up consisting of text only (people don’t read much nowadays). And this post has already too many words.
Here is a suitable picture. Let’s look at it. You look at it.
So, what have we got?
For sure, this is not then the inside or the outside of a refrigerator, as in our imagination above. No, this is a picture of two deck chairs in front of a Bacardi poster. Shot on board one of the large ferries taking people and cars from Copenhagen, Denmark to Oslo, Norway. Shot, as I recall, in 2006.
Now, to the next little experiment. Forget the refrigerator, and in your imagination place this picture over the whole page in the same Sunday paper, that you “had in your hands” a while ago. Add the following headline to it: Free Drinks.
Having this image in you mind, would you say that this was a dominant mood of what: logic or emotion. Would you be travelling on the emotional road or the logical road. What do I hear you say? Do I hear you at all … no, I don’t so I will have to speak once more
You could, of course, say that the heading “free drinks” could be a part of a logical argument. For instance “free drinks and you will save money”, which most of us will understand as a reasonable argument. But in this context, I would argue that this imaginary advertisement is dominantly emotional. How do I come to that conclusion. Well, why not use the connotations that might come with this picture. Here are some suggestions: relaxation, vacation, travel, sunshine, good feeling, et cetera.
And that is nearly all I have to say this time. Sorry for such a wordy post. YOU need to continue from here
Very quick summary. Dominant mode is one of the advertising fundamentals stressed by Schwerin and Newell in their research. You are better off if you chose one road, logic or emotion, in stead of trying to travel both at the same time.
You should notice, that research in advertising goes very well with more academic sources like semiology, gestalt psychology and with phenomenology, even if all these sources have not been made explicit in this post.
Basically, the idea of merging resources are what barebones communication is all about: How different sources of competence may work together. They can even do so in very practical situations. Like, for instance, analysing or “constructing” a piece of communication like “an advertisement”.
If you want to read the first post in this barebones section on advertising, please go here. For an overview go here.
Other posts
You’ll find direct links to the other posts in this series on advertising fundamentals, below. If the post title is linked, it means that the posts has been submitted, and that you will get to it if you follow the link. If the fundamental is not yet linked, it means that that the post is not there yet. So you need to have a little patience.
First Fundamental: One Unified Impression.
Second Fundamental: Dominant Mood.
Third Fundamental: Visual and Verbal.
Fourth Fundamental: The Simple Truth.
Fifth Fundamental: Product of Consumer.
Sixth Fundamental: The Right Consumer.
Seventh Fundamental: Thoughts Worth Entertaining.
If you want to go for the book making your learning curve steeper and faster, here is the Library Thing information on it. And you’ll get the full information here as well: Persuasion in Marketing, The Dynamics of Marketing’s Great Untapped Resource, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1981.
Stay well. A post on the third fundamental will emerge on this blog soon.
First Advertising Fundamental: One Unified Impression.
Once again time to move on. Let me point a few posts back on the blog. Back to this post about fundamentals in persuasive advertising. You should really start by reading, or re-reading, that post.
The next about 10 posts on this blog will refer to that initial post, and more generally to the book Persuasion in Marketing written many years ago by Horace S. Schwerin and Henry H. Newell. Don’t for one moment think that this is outdated information even if the book was written in 1981, and nowadays only can be had as used and well read copies.
I have to say though, that in spite of the actuality of these fundamentals many of them seems to have been forgotten, even by people in the advertising business. I say this being the reader of newspapers and magazines. And the viewer of television. It is amazing what people, and ad agencies, get away with in terms of bad communication in advertising.
So let this post then, and the ones to come, be a reminder to the some advertising people that things can be improved. And a reminder to those paying for it, that much, much money could be invested much, much better by (among other things) observing some very simple, but well proven fundamentals.
One unified impression. What does it mean and how should it be understood? And how can you use it as an operative tool to improve your message? Please note that these fundamentals do not only have bearing on advertising, but on communication in general, if impact is what you are after.
Schwerin and Newell: “The successful advertisement leaves the reader or viewer with a single unified impression. This does not mean that several related concepts cannot be fused together to make a harmonious whole. It does mean that presenting a series of unconnected ideas should be avoided”.
It is not more problematic than that. Let me illustrate this with yet another photograph.
Copyright 2008: Knut Skjærven. All rights reserved.
This photographic message is by no means a simple or uncomplicated one. Look alone at the number of different elements that goes into it. Let me mention the most obvious; three people of different race and colour, a large mask, balloons, decorative items of different shape and content. Many reasons to possibly get confused here, but you don’t do you?
I say, that in terms of one unified impression this image does the job. And it does it pretty well The reason is that none of the elements in it contradict or disturb each other. There are no elements in this pictures that takes you off track, initiates your mind to wanders off in a direction not wanted. Hopefully you agree with me in this. If not, please let me hear from you in a comment to the post and we’ll take the discussion there.
Even if the picture mainly is here to illustrate one unified impression, can other things be said about it? Things that have a bearing on communication in general? I think so. Notice the denotations and connotations that comes with it. Some of the denotative elements have already been mentioned, three people, mask, balloons, different decorative objects to wear on your body.
What about connotations? How would you describe them? Is Roland Barthes at work here as well with one, or more, of this connotation procedures? I think so. I would say that what Barthes says about pose fits this picture well. See this post. You judge it. I could go one. Take a look at how gestalt factors work in this picture: proximity, similarity (or lack of it), closure, good curve, et cetera.
Here are some of the connotations that the image brings with it: happiness, movement, excitement, movement, joy. There are many, many more. The point is that they all forward the same unified message. The same unified impression.
Normally you have text in advertising, as well. Not only pictures. What then about the text? How should the text then work to enhance the message? The art of the copywriter is to fall in, or to direct, the one unified impression. Schwerin and Newell: “Once you have settled on the promise, every idea in the message should reinforce and amplify it”.
Just to make this even clearer: We are talking about ONE single impression here, not one and a half, not two, not three. I am sorry to say, that this amount is what the average human brain seems to be able to handle simultaneously.
For those who read Danish, or even Scandinavian, there are more on advertising fundamentals in these articles and this book. Or even, and much better, try to get a copy of the book in question.
The main tag of this thread on advertising fundamentals is rules of persuasion so you can always come back to it by hitting that tag in the tag cloud.
Other posts
You’ll find direct links to the other posts in this series on advertising fundamentals, below. If the post title is linked, it means that the posts has been submitted, and that you will get to it if you follow the link. If the fundamental is not yet linked, it means that that the post is not there yet. So you need to have a little patience.
First Fundamental: One Unified Impression.
Second Fundamental: Dominant Mood.
Third Fundamental: Visual and Verbal.
Fourth Fundamental: The Simple Truth.
Fifth Fundamental: Product of Consumer.
Sixth Fundamental: The Right Consumer.
Seventh Fundamental: Thoughts Worth Entertaining.
If you want to go for the book making your learning curve steeper and faster, here is the Library Thing information on it. And you’ll get the full information here as well: Persuasion in Marketing, The Dynamics of Marketing’s Great Untapped Resource, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1981.
All for now. Stay tuned. A post on the second fundamental will emerge on this blog real soon.
You Can Pay Me Later: Husserl on Images.
Well, you will be surprised. I was.
Up till a month ago I had no idea that Edmund Husserl has written much about images. Not to speak about photography. Until I had a closer look in my bookcase and found this book: Edmund Husserl: Phantasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerungen, herausgeben von Eduard Marbach, Husserliana Band XXIII, Martinus Nijhoff, 1980.
I am ashamed that I have to admit that I have had this book since April 22, 1980. On the other hand it might have gained considerably in value since it is still in mint condition. I paid Deutsche Mark 255,00 for it at that time. And that is a small fortune. It is a brick on 724 pages written with an obscure philosophical pen. Husserl’s pen. The major parts of it about 100 years back. Don’t let that disturb you.
The good thing is, that is was translated (yes, it was) by John B. Brough in 2005 and published in a paperback edition by German publisher Springer. Goes by the title: Phantasy, Image Consciousness, and Memory (1898 -1925). And it comes at a much better price. It’s a good read.
What is even better is that the book is absolutely amazing for anyone that intents to dig into the ontology and images and photography. So, it you plan to have a career as a university professor, or simply settle for a Ph.D., or have an interest in the arts in general, you should simply start with this book. It leaves Roland Barthes and Susan Sonntag in the back row. And it does so in a couple of pages into the book.
You should move NOW, since this book and this branch of research have hardly picked up yet. But it will. You could really take the drivers seat for a while even if it will probably leave you with a 700+ pages headache. That will pass over time.
You don’t have to thank me for this recommendation now. You can pay me later. When I loaded both books to Library Thing a little while ago it turned out that I, so far, am the only one that have pointed to these books. And there are tons of books in there already. So the show is yours for the taking.
And as I said. You can pay me later, but if you are into this areas either as a researcher, student or just out of plain interest: GO FOR IT. I will – with some delay
You will find the precise references to both the original version from 1980, and to the translation from 2005 by following the links. Both ways you are in for a brick of pages.
NB: When you are done with Husserl’s theory on images and photographs you could always send me a quick word as to why the image below might have a certain phenomenological affinity And, add a bit of semiological and gestalt psychological analysis while you are at it.
Good luck with both the books, and the picture.
All rights reserved.
Buy the English translation of Husserl’s work. Follow the link and support the site:
Phantasy, Image Consciousness, and Memory (1898-1925) (Husserliana: Edmund Husserl Collected Works)
phenomenological-method-
Recent Comments
knut skjaerven on phenomenology: what is in… aureliomadrid on phenomenology: what is in… knut skjaerven on phenomenology: what is in… aureliomadrid on phenomenology: what is in… knut skjaerven on He Is Here for The Forest… -
barebones light photostream
More Photos -
