Press and PR
A press release with one weak photograph does not get picked up. Here is the image set, caption file and delivery schedule an editor can run without a single phone call.
A press release with one weak photograph does not get picked up. An editor at a trade magazine has a page to fill, three releases on the desk, and the one that runs is usually the one that needed no phone calls about picture files. I have shot press material for antiques dealerships, product launches and hotel openings for over two decades, and the deliverable that gets used is consistent: a tight set of clean, well-lit images with captions already written, sent the same day. This is how that set is built.
Print magazines need 300 dpi at the size the image will run. A half page in a trade title means the longest edge needs roughly 3000 pixels, so a full resolution file, not a web export. Web outlets are more forgiving, but the format rules are absolute: JPEG, sensible file names, no embedded text or logos across the image, and a caption in the email rather than painted onto the photo. Anything that arrives as a phone screenshot or with the PR's watermark over the subject goes straight to the bottom of the pile.
Verticals matter more than people expect. Most press work is horizontal, but an opening spread, a feature lead or an Instagram crop wants a portrait version of the key image. I shoot the hero frame both ways before moving on.
For a typical press release subject, a new workshop, a hotel refurbishment, a partnership announcement, the minimum set I deliver is about 14 images:
Press photography is a step down from advertising polish and a step up from snaps. The standard I work to is available light made to look its best, with flash fill kept about a stop under the window exposure so nothing looks lit, the same discipline as our work on hotel rooms and short-stay interiors. Rooms are styled, not faked. If the refurbishment is half finished, we photograph the finished half and say so, because an editor who discovers the pictures oversold the story never uses the source again. The same rule runs through our guide to briefing a commercial photographer: accurate briefs in, accurate pictures out.
The caption file is half the service. Who, what, where, in the order an editor can paste: "The new joinery workshop at [name], [town], opened [date]." Spelled names, checked. Nothing gets an editor's goat like a caption asking them to guess which person is the managing director.
Two rights issues come up constantly. First, releases. Any recognisable person in a commercial context needs a model release on file, and property owners need to permit use. Second, licensing. PR images are licensed for editorial use by the client and the outlets they serve, and the license terms need to state that plainly. Our guide to copyright and licensing in commercial photography covers the standard structures, and the PR-specific point is that an all-rights-reserved delivery that forbids third-party editorial use makes the images unusable for the exact purpose they were shot for.
News windows close fast. A press shoot delivered in ten days is a press shoot delivered to the bin. I deliver a first set of web-sized files the same evening, so the PR team can seed the release immediately, with the full print-resolution set and captions following within 48 hours. If your business is planning a launch, that turnaround is worth asking about before booking, because not every photographer structures delivery around a news cycle.
Tight deadlines also change how I pack. A press shoot gets duplicate camera bodies and duplicate memory cards, because there is no reshoot when the release goes out the next morning. Cables, chargers and a laptop for on-site review all travel, and the first thing I do on location is shoot the hero frame early, while the light or the schedule still allows time to fix problems. The last hour of a press shoot is the wrong time to discover the best angle needs something that is in the car at home.
Some PR teams send a photographer who works to a script, others send none and ask the client to shoot phone pictures. Phone pictures get used by small web outlets now and then, and they almost never carry a feature. If the announcement matters to the business, the budget line that pays for proper images is the cheapest part of the campaign, and the images are the only part that outlives the coverage window.
The quiet commercial argument: press images keep working after the release dies. The same files fill the website's news page, the sales deck and the next three features. Shot properly once, licensed properly, they outlive the announcement by years.