Gyrogami Blog - Precious Metals, Jewelry, Artwork

What Picture?

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Categories:Experiences and daily life; Commerce and business

Word count/read time: 465 words; 2 minutes

Pictures were the de facto way of sharing information before the information age - remember those (junk) mail catalogs, the iconic Sears starting it about a century ago? (With their demise, will catalogs in general share a similar fate?) Professionals prepared them so their presentation, captions, and pictures were usually excellent. These companies' livelihoods depended on this information.

Somewhere around the dawn of the internet, things began to evolve. Pictures were still important but their significance got watered down - maybe information overload? Taking good pictures became a casualty because someone else must have better pictures, someone else a better description, someone else did the research. So just "borrow" the information to use like it's yours. Stealing someone's intellectual property is plagiarism and a crime.

It was amusing to see a high-end website describe what kinds of pictures should be included in a listing. Well, there are at least six sides or views to any object. That would mean at least six pictures to "show" the item entirely. If it's big, shapely, unique, antique, or one of 10,000 things that can affect the perceived value, then more pictures are necessary.

Basic point-and-shoot and phone cameras make it virtually impossible to take bad pictures. It's not that hard to determine if a picture is in focus or not - ditch it if it ain't. Above all, it's bad business when potential buyers have to ask, "What are you selling?" because the description and/or pictures are vague.

As much as I thought my jewelry pictures were decent, they basically suck. Using a piece of wood or stone, as cool as it may look, does not add zest when it is the main picture. It is juvenile and distracting. After taking some quality pictures the right way there'll be thousands more photos in my future. It only took a decade to figure it out.

The power of a word or photo? Priceless. It gives buyers the chance to research the item if they can identify enough about it. Though a bad picture or description won't thwart the tenacious vintager, the exclusion or misspelling of one word or a blurred picture can be very costly. Few search for misspelled words or try to interpret bad pictures. Someone might buy it anyway, realizing the profits when they re-sell it. The internet is alive with stories like that.

We live in a one-click world. Scan a SKU or smart image and everything about the item pops up on a smartphone. Presumably any person has access to just about all the information known to man, right? It's a chance to sink or swim in front of the whole world. Thorough descriptions are worth money. Never mind a good picture being worth a thousand words, it just might fetch an extra thousand dollars!

Posted by M: March 16, 2019

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