Fortunately or unfortunately, my Cordwell Aero Aviation web site has a stock image library of aviation photographs, all created by me.  This works well for me, the photographer, because every day I can go out a shoot images, its something I like, there’s an undeniable passion for the aviation involved and I earn money from it.

However, there are a few disconnects here. Firstly the stock library business has taken a whole heap of work away from photographers.  Secondly, now everyone who owns a camera is a photographer, or thinks they are.  Point of fact I started my library because I couldn’t stop the flow of lost work, could not turn back the tide or moved a mountain or two.  Therefore on the premise if you can’t beat the system, I’ve gone along with it.

The really big but is the problem with the term “generic” which applies to most library images, even specialist photographers must inevitably produce generic work because there is no market for the images prior to having created them.  Within this generic terminology is the premise that not all images are created equal or suit every application, rightly so.

Then comes the question of selection, who selects the image that is employed to drive a particular web site, product or brand. Well, for my money if a sink in my house springs a leak I get a plumber in, a mechanic to fix my car, a doctor to prescribe drugs and so on.

The digital age has made the accessibility of potentially useable imagery very easy and more importantly, by absolutely anyone, no qualification needed, just a credit card. Essential truth is: get it right and the picture helps the document, or web site, work for you. Get the picture wrong and it will and subconsciously and insidiously eat away at your business worse thank trojan virus.

What qualifications are required to select an image from a stock library?   Who chooses, how does it affect the marketing strategy for businesses worth millions of squids.  The digital age has made it too easy, too accessible, too wide a choice and it is important that we recognise the loaded gun that buying stock library images is.

It happens on a minute by minute basis world wide. Photographers once briefed accurately made that qualified choice for individuals and businesses and now predominately the choices are made less able well motivated executives and the results are visible on millions of web sites around the world.

And theses are just a few reasons to think twice about using stock images.

1.    Your competitor or, even worse competitors, or disastrously worse a pornography site (it happens), may be using the image too.

2.    Unless you have a stratospherically genius designer, you will always be compromised by matching your service or product to the photograph,
not the other way around. And the Designer won’t be cheap to employ, he can’t afford to look cheap.

3.    You will loose the the originality that comes from the character of your business and assumes that of the photograph.

4.    You will inevitably use stock photographs from different sources or creators and they will not have commonality. This effort sacrifices consistency
in your companies perceived abilities and destroys the confidence your clients place in your services.

5.     By the time you spent a day or two selecting the stock imagery, paid for releases for multiple usages and file sizes, retouched and altered the
image in an attempt to match your other photographic content you will have paid more than commissioning your own specific imagery.

6.    Sacrificing the opportunity of creating original photographs about your company by using stock images is a fantastic marketing resource
squandered unnecessarily.

7.    Predominately, stock library images are perceived as cheap, a product of the digital age, and by associations, the dangers are all too apparent.

8.    There will never be precisely the image you need, compromise will always be a necessity.

9.    You may get lucky, the image may go unnoticed, it might very nearly fit with the other images, it’s almost in focus, the colours are very close,
the background nearly fits, what was really required was a night shot but who’s counting, the effects can be minimised and the gamble very
nearly paid off. But not quite the result you had in mind. So close, so far.

10.    The motivation to your staff to have them included in photography and the confidence you have shown in them to be part of the company picture
will be an advantage lost.

11.    The chance to make a statement has gone, the chance to work with some great photographers has passed.

12.    Stock library images can look exactly just what they are; of the peg solutions. How does that fit with the service you sell to your clients?

Cordwell Aero Aviation Art

Why stick stuff up on the walls, risking ridicule, damnation and reputation.

Art is a very emotive word that is defined as “The Creation of Beautiful Things”.  In our superbly diverse modern world the major caveat added to that statement should be “All Things to All Men, and Women”. So to be certain that art justifies its existence and expense, especially in a commercial sense, on the walls of an FBO for instance, the content has to be appropriate. Not only that, but it needs to earn its keep by creating an emotional connection with clients, provoking a response, inspiring the feeling of wellbeing and ultimately, and most importantly, subtly founding the confidences to be built upon.

Therefore you can’t just bang any old image on the wall in any condition because the net effect could be negative, and all those confidences built by hard work and effort will be destroyed in seconds.

The biggest common denominator in all this is the brand a company has founded, and if appreciated, protected at all costs. So the images on the wall, on the web, on the business card, in the brochure need to reflect a commonality that supports the brand. Moreover, it is not just about the one image, it is all of them. Commonality, uniqueness, in each and every application.

Confidence as a concept is one of the most powerful selling tools in existence, it motivates people to buy things. Abuse it at your peril, because it really is a game changer, embrace the concept and you are ahead of the game. Another equally important concept is that pictures are window into one’s own soul, where the content touches us all on a very personal level. Don’t mess with this concept and ultimately be honest with the message and statement you are attempting to make. A try to avoid being too literal.

Eurocopter 355s Twin Squirrel, Title; Blue Squirrel.

“The Blue Squirrel”

Cordwell Aero Aviation Art

February 2015

Listed below are two of my latest works.  One image is of a 1930’s ‘Spartan Executive aircraft. A single engine monoplane of the inter war years when  aircraft development and production had slowed dramatically because of the glut of ex’ military aircraft cheaply available on the civilian market. Spartan Aircraft confronted this trend head on and built the ‘Executive’ business aircraft.  Favoured by the rich and famous, including Marlene Dietrich and Howard Hughes.

My images can be printed on canvass, my favourite is 1.2m in width, and we can print on colour fast art papers to extremely high standards of quality framed or unframed. The new mediums I have successfully experimented with are polycarbonates reverse printed along with new techniques of printing on brushed aluminium.

In fact we can print at any size required and pretty much any medium you might care to think of. Even old distressed oak doors.

The exciting thing about images hung on the walls of businesses and individual homes is that they become focal points and will create impressions in the minds of whoever sees them.  And in business, especially in one as competitive as aviation, a lasting impression in your clients mindset is a brilliant advantage to have over your competitors. In an ideal world we want that impression to be positive. So many times companies fall at the first hurdle because of silly avoidable mistakes or lack attention to detail. It might be cold coffee, it may be a pilot strutting scruffily dressed, it could be dirty cars in the car park, in fact its probably a cumulative series of events which may include predictably uninspiring images hanging on the wall.

One of the issues I can fix for aviation based organisations is what goes on the walls.  I can either provide stock for my huge range of classic, military and business aircraft, or, I can shoot bespoke imagery either in both literal terms and creatively abstract. Detailed here as well is a close up of a Rolls Royce Trent engine with a different treatment.

“Spartan Executive”

“Rolls Royce Trent Engine”

Nothing Ever Changes

February 1943, happy days.

After an airfield walk in Norfolk with a truly great chum, having retired to a local hostelry, the barmaid pulled out a box of pictures about the old B17 bomber base we’d just visited. And this image below was just one of the many snaps, a 1943 colour photograph. Nothing changes, great pictures will always happen, film or digital, amateur or professional. Keep snapping. By a weird coincidence I have actually met the Bombadier from this aircraft and got his autograph!

Want a good Walk?

You just got to do this. A prehistoric burial chamber you can actually walk inside in Wiltshire. Park in Avebury, do the stones and the pub, then walk due South.

The West Kennet Long Barrow. February 2014

West Kennet Long Barrow

Who wants to be a photographer?

January 2014

The sea of Tranquility is a lonely place, because you are probably the only one there and ever will be.  Proper photography is a solitary pursuit, one eye, one brain, one idea and one lens. No plurals, no help, no friends just you the light and the camera.  You can only reach the sea by a process of elimination. The harmony that is the sea is such an arduous task to achieve many fail without ever knowing there actually was a path in the first place. I’m not inferring that that there is a formulaic process to create an image that is the ultimate solution, but there are, almost subliminal controls, that once applied give up the clues in the problem solving task that is photography.  It’s a lonely place to be because no one else sees it. Because they were not with you in the lens when the image was born, when the light was captured in a moment frozen forever in a halide digital flux.  There is no perfect image, merely perfect intentions, compromise is ever present and is both, friend or foe.  Balance, form, contrast, texture are the basic tools, the building blocks that facilitate creating a picture. The buttons, knobs, wheels, programs on the camera are there to degrade the picture, not build, because you only really need three things to create a picture.  As long as you understand form, balance and contrast you only need the light, an aperture and a shutter.  Anyone can take a photograph, put the camera on auto and snap away. But very regrettably all you will have become is a photocopier.  Photography is the fine art of manipulation; it is not what you include that makes a wonderful image it is really more a case of what you choose to exclude. And once you’ve made all those choices, balanced the light, chosen the moments, appreciated where the contrast lies, analysed the form, manipulated the perspective, picked your spot, then you may be on the path. And the pure pleasure in reaching a point where an image of your creation reduces you to tears of joy, you know you’ve reached the sea.  Then and only then, finally, you will never be alone.