The Addition of Movement

Intro by Skip Cohen

This post from Suzette Allen’s archives is six years old…yet, so many of you still haven’t caught on. You’ve got to make your work look different than your competitors. So, from single images you share on your website and blog to marketing messages on various promotions, products and services – you’ve got to stand out!

It’s the fourth quarter and holiday seasonality is everywhere. Take advantage of technology in your products and services. Hybrid videos for holiday cards for your clients; a hybrid video about you and your business – still images, video clips and great music – all showing the clients you’re their best choice and use your blog!

Your website is about what you sell, but your blog is about what’s in your heart. Together they present the best story you could share – who you are!

By Suzette Allen

Our eyes are so drawn to movement! As I gaze happily out the window, waiting for my breakfast, my eyes dart back and forth between the flag-waving softly in the wind to the tree branches dancing, to the reflection in the glass of the TV behind me in the restaurant. Our eyes can’t help but be captivated by movement. That’s why we always see those obnoxious wiggly or flashing ads on the side banners of the websites! Such a diversion! But you can’t help it—you can’t not look!

That makes me think about Hybrid photography and the magnetic appeal- it’s uncanny how people respond to it. Maybe that’s part of it. We are wired to respond to movement and our eyes and minds are stimulated by it any time we see it. Even out of the corner of our eyes. That’s part of the appeal of TV too: It is captivating. It has your attention even before you identify the content.

So, I’m exploring the avenues of movement in my portraits. Hybrid eProducts, of course, are totally cool, but on a simpler level, the Echograph or Flixel model is pretty dynamic too. It just grabs people when they see a little movement- especially when its’ isolated from other objects you would expect to move!

So that’s my new direction: adding motion and e-motion to my portraits! Literally moving, but even better when it touches the heart: ”Moving Portraits”. I think I should focus on both.