“A Picture Tells a Thousand Words”.
I offer the following 9 tips for ‘profile picture perfection’. http://bphotography.net.au/?p=3453 These tips are not intended to offend anyone, but rather to encourage you to sit back and ‘take a look at yourself’ objectively. To see yourself as others may see you and make sure it is exactly what you want.
This article discusses my cheeky comments in regards to my 4th ‘Tip to Profile Picture Perfection’ :-
When I asked Paul Atkins if I may use his profile picture as an example of the photography industry liking to have the extension of themselves (their camera) in their profile pictures on social media and he readily said yes! It just had to be done 🙂
4. Professional? No, this doesn’t mean you necessarily have to go and have a professional photo taken by a professional photographer, you know, the one you see with a camera in their hand, often obscuring part or all of their face … btw, I wonder, why that is?
Why do so many photographers have their camera in their business & personal profile pictures on social media? It is more than in any other industry I can think of … hmmmm, strange??
Is it a security thing?? A status symbol? Or are these photographers wanting to leave the impression that they are always ‘ready’, camera in hand?
Maybe professional photographers are trying to differentiate themselves by the camera in their profile picture; those that take photos with a DSLR compared to those that use an iPhone exclusively?
Could there be some sort of sign language that I am missing? Cryptic messages or a code language for covering one eye compared to covering your entire face? What about the photographer that has multiple cameras slung around their body?? Wonder what they are trying to tell everyone?
Considering I only found out about gravatars yesterday, I am wondering if maybe I have missed something here, too? I tried googling “why do photographers have cameras in their profile picture on social media?”, but all Google came up with were images of photographers with cameras in their profile pictures on social media. Hundreds and hundreds of them. There was no satisfactory explanation … In fact, no written explanation at all!
Imagine if accountants decided to hold their prized calculators in their profile picture? IT specialists cradled their keyboards or tossed their laptop over their shoulders. Bigger and bigger laptops till someone decided to outshine them all and lift up an entire networked desktop computer system?
Well, Paul Atkins is this man! Refusing to be outdone by any old DSLR or even a swag of them pictured with their owner. Paul makes every other photographer green with envy with the size of the camera he is holding in this image. His “selfie” camera …
Not only is he a highly respected photographer within the photographic community, Paul is an Australian Institute of Professional Photography legend!
If any photographer is going to get away with holding a giant camera that takes up a huge chunk of their profile picture on LinkedIn … it is going to be Paul Atkins! A man with a big heart, a big personality and a big … ‘camera store’ 😉
As a third generation director of the family run business, AtkinsTechnicolour, Paul is keenly interested in the survival and growth of the photographic industry. He is always on the forefront of new techniques, trends and current issues, and just loves to share his knowledge. He has been involved in the photographic industry since he was born and joined AtkinsTecnicolour just in time for the company to enter the digital squeeze that Paul championed. He was quick to pick up the technology, and with leadership from Kodak brought Adelaide into the new age.
Paul is State President for the Australian Institute of Professional Photography (AIPP), National Chairperson for PMA Australia, National President of the Association of Professional Colour Imagers (APCI). Lectures on Marketing, Colour Management, Adobe Lightroom and Digital Asset Management (Archiving digital files).
This man understands the photographic industry, he understands marketing, he has a brilliant sense of humour and a bloody big ‘camera’ 🙂
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