Button “Masterpiece”. Marketing basis for demanded art creation.

Many photographers, among them me, regret that photo camera does not have button “masterpiece”. Such a button was not provided by producers. Otherwise nearly every photographer desires to take a “masterpiece”. By set of articles “Button masterpiece” I want to share with you my vision and listen yours vision. The set is dedicated those who want to get more than just a nice picture for family album. It would explain us how to create an art which will charm people, will come out the top, will make itself conspicuous at exhibitions, will attract critics’ attention.

The first must be mentioned is that the photographer should understand for what purpose he creates the picture (or for whom). In case picture is for him or for his family so he could stop reading this article. If you have an idea to take a part in tender, competition or exhibition etc., so you have to thing over and clearly understand future result.

Below are some marketing reasoning which I will adjust to your easier comprehension.
case we will regard the picture as a product. Our future admirers - as consumers.
To see what product’s (picture) advantages are valuable for consumers (your potential admirers) and what features (quality) the picture should contain (the one we put in the picture), we will do its "3-level analysis" (this meaning was set by Dibb).
Below is the scheme of “3-level analysis”:

At the beginning we should realize what could be interesting for our consumer, what picture will attract the consume attention, how the consumer choice is created etc.
In practice, most of audience (fans, professional photographers, connoisseurs, critics etc.) believe these three characteristics are similar and could be described in a following way:

Added product – picture genre, form of the picture (size), easy viewing (additional editing to easy viewing), tonality etc.

Real product – the picture, quality, technical implementation, picture composition, colour, light etc.

Sense of the product (one of the main details) – something that could grab the consumer, result in emotions, make the consumer stop and examine the picture, attract the consumer attention… namely everything that could help the consumer to be satisfied with the picture.

One interesting story.
Marketing campaign of “Parker” company – producer of high level pens, was directed against the marketing campaign of “Waterman” company, which produced the similar product. Parker considered that if he beats only one main competitor the business would be ok. When in future the “3-level analysis” was applied to Parker company it was found out that the product essence is not the pencil, but business souvenir. Thus the main competitor was not "Waterman", but well-known business souvenir producer - “Zippo” company. Namely ‘Zippo” lighters were competitive product for “Parker”. That is how analysis changes comprehension of life and activity direction!

I started easy, didn’t I?

Sharing with you the secret of picture sense I would like to notice that on my opinion the secret is individuality and uniqueness.
In other words if both of them are absent in the picture, so the picture is doomed to family album.

In general we have the following:

Picture sense is individuality, real product is a high quality and correct shooting, added product is – correct and easy viewing!!! You must remember these constantly!!!
This is what we have to tent to in case we want to get the result “masterpiece”!

Now we understand where to tend to. It is time to think about how??

P.S.

I do not want to impose you my vision of art and do not pretend to the absolute. This is just information for references and only for those who really need it.

To be continued…
Dmitry Zhamkov 2007

See also:

Button "Masterpiece” part №2
Button "Masterpiece” part №3