You know the adage: A picture’s worth a thousand words.  With e-commerce, your clients have a nanosecond to size up your company from the visuals you provide either on your website or in here-to-stay swell of social media. What words are your clients hearing from your company’s images.

Relevant, intelligent, edgy, relaxed, refined, reputable, fresh, powerful, cool, unified, contemporary…

Brand as a word has evolved from the days of Gloria Vanderbilt to a corporate necessity defining the way companies position themselves in the marketplace.  Today, leaders in industry are choosing to invest in commercial brand photography to succinctly represent their unique brand with images that tell their story instantly and honestly.  With powerful commercial photography comes a clear message for your website, business collateral and social media presence.

Doing commercial photojournalism gives me the wonderful opportunity to make impactful impressions for my clients. In the corporate realm, I get to be an interpreter and storyteller with my camera. I interpret companies brand and take images that represent them for their business marketing needs.  I read people.  And people make the company.  That’s why innovative companies like Talent Revolution and Nextvoice247 hired me to hop up their marketing with relevant images.

Brand Cohesion in the words of Chicago visionary Gilbert Melott, founder of Nextvoice247.

fleurdeleigh: photographs are words captured from VoiceBox | Nextvoice247 on Vimeo.

Being a photographer gives me the pleasure of getting to know the people I work with, genuinely.  Commercial photography is getting a whole lot cooler. Working with the cool folks at Nextvoice247 & Talent Revolution rocked and was a great reminded why I LOVE my job.

Click [here] for more images from the Nextvoice247’s photo shoot.

Leigh Caraccioli

@fleurdeleigh

Tweet ingredients & proportional mix

Value: 62%

What makes Twitter rock is that is that value packed tweets prevail. If you need info, help, breaking news, industry trends, food for fodder, a good laugh, or a litmus test of what’s hot right now you can find easily on Twitter.  Use search to pinpoint the info you seek.  I strive to provide humor, information, links, and resources for my followers. How else would they know how to properly burn bacon in 140 characters?  Pause and ask yourself…what value does this tweet provide.

You: 21%

There are people that I follow that bubble over with personality in their tweets.  The key here is to let your personality into your tweets but not to let consume your tweets.  When it’s all about you, you need no followers just a good mirror.  Contrary, there are people I follow that don’t allow enough of themselves into their tweets. While informative they have the vitality of a newspaper.  It’s a balancing act. Giving an extrovert a big megaphone can pose challenges. I struggle with the appropriate tweet mix in this category.  You, your social media presence is a brand.  Be you, be real, but be mindful of your personal brand.

Good manners: 14%

Visualize Twitter as a big cocktail party and employ your good manners. Be conversational, be a good listener, share the good stuff you hear (retweets!!), say please & thank you, and be charming.  Shed the auto DMs as they feel as insincere as a stranger handing out business cards enmasse at random.

Karma: (unmeasurable)

Good Karma matters. Last year I was the victum of a random act of viral niceness.  A “big deal” on Twitter gave me kudos, sent me many handfuls of cool new friends/followers, and eventually became a IRL dear friend. It felt good & I was hooked, thank you @unmarketing. The turning point is when you realize what you can DO for another here. If you take away one element for your tweet formula, make it this:

Make today matter. Make some else’s day. You’ll find it’ll make your own.

Twitter is an ideal arena to do good for others by giving recognition, introducing new followers, giving blogs and websites airplay, elevating and unifying your industry. Voila!!  That’s it.  Hope you weren’t expecting E=MC2.  As always…I love hearing from you. Please leave a comment about your personal formula below.

Leigh

(and for you mathy-mathy people…yes, I am aware

Before I could finish the lyrics to silent night, the season passed me by. Had a marvelous time photographing the darling families this season. Eventually, I’ll get around to revising the website to include my most favorites of all the season.  Eventually.  Feels like I just got the tree up…

If you are a family photographer during the holidays you may have felt the blur I did and you’re probably vowing to do it differently next year.  And you’re probably, right now, reaquainting yourself with your own family

More from the Hearn gallery here.

When I received the call from my childhood best friend, my emotional levee broke.  She called for reassurance knowing that I’d undergone a needle biopsy of my own.  “Think positively. They are probably just ruling out Cancer.”  With cracky voice, she agreed and assured me she would call back tomorrow with the results.  No call. I knew.

This is the part where I wish I could claim valor, strength, courage. I wish I could tell the story of a friend who zoomed down to Cinci right after finding out my best friend had breast cancer.  Tell you all that I was there at her double masectomy and after with support. Instead, I failed her and me.

Breast cancer looms large in my psyche stalking like the grim reaper patiently waiting.  Unlike Heather, I got good news a clean bill of health from my doctor after biopsy analysis.  So I am safe for now.  Having a maternal grandmother (my namesake) fight and lose to cancer before I got to meet her will leave a mark.  This is me trying to justify why I cowered when Heather got her news.

Now she is doing very well and I am coming to terms with my not being a good friend then in the face of my own fears.  In her honor and my grandmother’s, I have started Project Pink Photos.  Just me right now. Hopefully others in 2010.  What I can do for people, like Heather, is take family photographs at no charge.  This year I have selected a handful of individuals affected with breast cancer and offered them my photography service.  This way I am doing something for them and doing something to overcome my own inner fear.

More from Heather’s family gallery here.

Later this year, I will compile a gallery of these special images and share with you all inviting you to do the same in your neck of the woods if you choose.  You will hear more from me about Project Pink Photo in the spring of 2010. Till then, I hope you all stay healthy and wrestle your own fears back to size.

Leigh