"Big Blue," the Wells Fargo building in Salt Lake City
Yesterday, I had a long conversation with Trish about finding one's authentic voice in corporate blogging. We've both been reading Don Loper, and marveling at his openness in some recent posts.
Trish and I covered the waterfront on issues of grammar, style, acceptability of ranging off-topic from the blog purpose, etc. I got on my soapbox a bit, going on about how blogging requires a greater level of candor and informality than traditional corporate PR media. The blogging audience has come to expect authenticity, and when they read corporate-speak, they distrust, and then they become disinterested. Trish had an interesting take from the 45 minutes of time I took up that she could ill afford to spend on philosophy.
Later, I started to think about what it means to blog images with an authentic intent (the word voice doesn't have a direct analog that I can think of). First, there's motivation for image selection: I believe it's right and proper to show the images that tell my story (whatever I might be on about) rather than cherry-picking for the blog to create a "best of" series. That would be about as personal and meaningful as retyping corporate press releases into a CEO's blog.
That's not all though. I think it's important to select images and tell about the process, and talk about how the image does (or does not) match my intentions. I think I can do more of that in my blog.
I used to worry more about finding my "style", but Julia Cameron's work, especially the Artist Way, helped me tremendously to accept that I am the only one who can do my work. I saw this yesterday, when I was pulling together some image files for a new CD portfolio, and realized that my style found me:
Part of my "Glass & Architecture" series
Three cities, three different buildings, all my own seeing. You might not like the style, but it's mine. The word series is a little misleading, because I didn't realize I was photographing on a theme until much later, when I went out to shoot Big Blue.
Right, that's a new version of Big Blue. I'll show you the versioning on it in a later post. This one is more authentic to my intent, which has changed since I shot it almost 2 years ago. I've changed, as an observer, and as a person, and I would hope/expect that my images would too. A little less rigidity is a good thing, in blogs, and in my photography.
Comments (1)
Ann,
Thanks for the insightful discussion regarding the use of authentic voice and the appropriateness of tone when blogging about the corporate entity.
The rigidity of writing grants, manuscripts for peer review or technical documention requires a disciplined writing with little room for the personal voice. For example, I can't imagine anyone would be interested in my never ending stories about the antics of Harriett (you know that she is an expert fly catcher). People would think that I have lost my mind!
The real lesson is...ready... loosen up already! (Just make absolutely certain you don't sound like an idiot).
By the way, I love the Glass & Architecture pictures.
Talk soon,
Trish
Posted by Trish Goede | February 23, 2007 4:34 PM
Posted on February 23, 2007 16:34