Category Blog

Get Real: It’s about people, not brands

March 14, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Industrial, Mainers at Work, Marketing

Industrial Recycling Worker

The biggest trend in 2022 seems to be the embrace of artificial intelligence (A.I.) tools like ChatGPT, Jasper and MidJourney by content marketers. In an age of deepfake videos and faked resumes, trust is the only thing in short supply.

That’s why authenticity matters more than ever when it comes to social media and content marketing. Winning brands take a people-first approach and who create meaningful connections with their customers and audiences.

What does authenticity mean? It means creating content that reflects your values and tells a story about your brand that resonates, cultivates relationships and fosters loyalty. It means creating visual content that features your real customers, team or audience, rather than opting for stock imagery. After all, people follow people, not brands. Authenticity entails communicating your brand values and cultivating your brand’s unique voice. It also may include user-generated content and collaboration with influencers who can help you tell your story in authentic ways. Here are a few ways brands might choose to be more authentic and transparent:

Lift the curtain: Show what it looks like behind the brand: your process, your culture, your successes and, sometimes, your misses.
Tell stories about real people and the impact they and you have had on the world.
Use short-form video to cut through the noise and provide answers to customer questions, provide useful information or to educate and inform.
Leverage user generated content (but only if allowed, and always give credit).

In a time when people are extremely wary of marketing that is ‘business as usual’, the trend is towards authenticity, engagement and connection. If you want to create impactful, authentic content that will connect with your clients, we’d love to help.

Image libraries keep social media content flowing

March 7, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Marketing

*Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.* *© Brian Fitzgerald*

If you’re a marketer and have responsibility for your brand’s image, having enough good content can be an issue.

It’s not just the amount of content, but the variety: blogs, articles, white papers, graphics, images, video. Coming up with consistent, on-point social content is a huge lift and often a thankless task.

You might put out slick, professionally-produced content. Or, you might be utilizing smartphone images and video produced on the fly by your team and/or your clients and users.

Both types of custom content can have a place in your social media strategy.

I’m often asked to create image and video libraries for companies who need a large amount of content with a consistent look and message. Supplemented often by content produced by their own marketing team, the result is an ongoing stream of sharable content. Voila—Instant Content Superheroes.

With a little planning, these targeted shoots can be efficient, cost-effective and done in a very strategic way to capitalize on different seasons of the year or business cycle.

Having a balance of polished, high-value content as well as social media-focused content will keep your audience engaged and will help you be successful at actually maininting the consistency needed to grow your audience.

Have questions about how to make this happen for you and your business? We build custom plans for our client partners and would be glad to discuss whether we’d be a good fit for yours.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

Showcase: York County Community College

February 28, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Client Work, Editorial, On Location, Showcase

YVCC — *York County Community College, © Brian Fitzgerald*

Over the past few years, I’ve worked with the Maine Community College System (MCCS) to highlight the workforce training programs at their seven campuses across Maine. These programs are designed and targeted to the needs of employers in Maine and are often a pipeline directly to well-paying professional jobs immediately upon graduation. Programs are diverse, ranging from nursing and culinary arts to project management and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The list is endless and always changing to adapt to the needs of the state’s employers.

We highlighted a few of the workforce development programs at York County Community College last year and tried to also capture some of the sense of community and connection between students and their faculty. It was a great opportunity to tell a story about a Maine institution that offers such incredible value to the community.

*York County Community College, © Brian Fitzgerald*

Leave Room for the Muse

February 21, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Creativity, Personal

Maine Brewer — *Behind the scenes,Peter Bissell, Bissell Brothers Brewing, Portland, Maine. © Brian Fitzgerald.*

When I hire a skilled professional—like the folks who installed my bathtub last year (really sorry about the non-code stuff you found and then had to correct), I like being able to trust that they know what they are doing and can be left to execute the vision as they best see fit. My role generally consists of leaving the room or my house entirely and then showing up hours or days later for the big reveal.

The hands-off, “pro knows all” approach is one that some of my clients take when hiring me, and it works very well for certain types of projects where the outcomes are very clear and precise. But my favorite type of work tends to be more collaborative and made better through creative give-and-take during the process rather than just beforehand (Good examples are my editorial coverage of Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ campaign and the Fish + Game Changers project for the Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries).

It’s fun working with agencies, who might have art director types who work closely with me to ensure the vision is evolving in the right direction. Evolving is the operative word here, because almost every remarkable project I’ve worked on has become that way because the creative partners—the client, the art director, and me, the photographer—are willing to start with the vision and then go where it naturally takes us. You have to be open to creative influence, or as author Steven Pressfield might note, you have to leave room for the Muse to do its work. Flexibility and creative collaboration are sure ways to elevate the final results of any photo or video shoot. Rigid, blinders-on thinking are sure ways to kill the creative magic.

2023 in 2023

February 14, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Personal, Travel

Maine Hike, © Brian Fitzgerald

My usual approach to annual goal setting involves a week in December carefully outlining each one in detail . Later I appreciate their thoroughness even as I find them, forgotten and largely unacheived, when cleaning out my desk drawers in late November.

This year I decided I’d try fewer goals with less moving parts: challenging, but best of all, easy to remember (and stick to). Then I identified one linchpin goal that in one way or another serves as a catalyst to getting other priorities done.

This year, it’s health: to be specific, being more active. To be even more specific: walking or hiking 2023 miles by the end of 2023. That’s an average of over 5.5 miles every day of the year, come rain, snow, ice or heat, often carrying a weighted pack. Easy. Right?

There’s a method to the madness. Next year (summer, 2024) I’m planning a weeklong backpacking trip to Iceland with friends. The hikes aren’t technical or steep but I do need to be able to lug a heavy pack and food for five days of hiking. Being in good shape means the trip won’t feel like slow torture.

I’m already past the 250 mile mark, on track so far. A few things are clear already: I feel better when I spend more time outdoors. I’ve observed things when walking streets I never did when traveling those same neighborhoods at car speeds (sometimes not great things, but always interesting). And I can get to the water’s edge at Portland’s East End beach from my downtown studio in 15 minutes (faster if I push a bit).

With that, it’s time to hit the bricks. What’s your linchpin goal in 20H23?

Capturing Moments

February 7, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Editorial, Portraits

Photography is synonymous with light. In Greek, the word literally means to draw with light. No light, no photography.

But what truly elevates photography to a higher form of art is something else. If video and film are all about assembling a story, where all the parts contribute to the narrative, the still image is all about capturing a singular moment in time.

Of the thousands of images you’ve seen or created in your lifetime, which stand out as special? It’s likely those that capture an authentic, remarkable moment. Moments can be a shared interaction or a fleeting expression. Sometimes dramatic, sometimes subtle, their impact is immediate and profound. Moments connect with viewers and pull them in.

The legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson called what he sought to capture as the Decisive Moment. Another way to say it: Don’t take photos. Capture moments instead.

Let your backgrounds tell the story

January 31, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Education, Marketing, Tips

Portland, Maine Bartender — *Andrew Volk, co-owner of Portland, Maine’s Hunt & Alpine Club © Brian Fitzgerald*

When it comes to portraits: choosing the proper background environment is as important (and sometimes, more so) than the subject themselves.

Your backgrounds give clues, both subtle and overt, and add contextual information that gives portraits mood and depth. They help to tell a more complete story about your subject. In short, a well-executed background can do some heavy lifting when it comes to conveying information and emotion.

Think about your background environments as deeply as you do your primary subjects. Give that background your attention—with purposeful lighting, frame composition and styling—and let it do the hard work of storytelling for you.

Portland Chiropractic Neurology in motion

January 24, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Showcase, Video

Last year, Fitzgerald Photo produced a series of videos for Portland Chiropractic Neurology, a Portland, Maine-based clinic providing uniquely comprehensive treatment that addresses underlying neurological causes for many debilitating and chronic ailments. The videos included instructional, how-to videos, patient testimonials and videos for social media campaigns that we rolled out throughout the year.

I’m happy to share one video in particular that we’ve now released. The goal was to provide a welcoming introduction to the clinic and staff for use on their website. This is a great example of what video does so well: transporting the viewer into a scene while vividly capturing the mood and feel of the clinic and giving a real sense of the patient experience.

These kinds of video productions give an opportunity to tell stories that connect and inform in a way that augments and enhances the still imagery we continue to create. See more of our Maine video productions here.

Photographing the person, not the title

January 17, 2023 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Mainers at Work, On Location

One of my favorite projects this past year has been covering the campaign of Maine Governor Janet Mills as she ran for re-election against challenger, former Gov. Paul LePage. Maine’s first female governor (elected in 2018), Mills faced the Covid pandemic and the resulting, ongoing economic and health impacts.

I was fortunate enough to accompany her on a visit to her hometown of Farmington, ME, to a child care center, a health clinic, and other locations around Maine. In the process I met her family and photographed Maine Senator Angus King, himself a former Maine governor.

Being on set with the governor for several days over several months, I was able to see Mills for extended periods of time—when the camera and lights were on but mostly when they weren’t—capturing the kinds of unguarded moments I tried hard to find as a photojournalist. It was great to catch a glimpse of the person and not just the politician. It was a good reminder of something I try to keep in mind no matter who I’m working with: photograph the person, not the title.

The results, I hope, tell a more complete story of Janet Mills, the person. It was certainly fun to see the reactions of Mainers and visitors alike when they met her in our travels.

Telling stories in 2023

January 11, 2023 0 Comments read Blog

Eastern Promenade with Mt. Washington in the distance, Portland, Maine @2022 Brian Fitzgerald

As 2022 melts into memory, those of us lucky enough to call Maine home are on the threshold of the coldest, snowiest part of the year. Winter is a time of reflection, of doing the work and preparing for spring and warmer weather to come. As grateful as I am for the projects and client work that occurred over the past 12 months, I’m even more excited about what’s in store for 2023.

It’s worth pausing and celebrating the past year. 2022, by the numbers: 40+ clients, 7 videos, 95 shoots on location (and about an equal number in-studio), and 137 shooting days. It was a busy, busy year, and I’m grateful.

Given the lag time between when much of my work is produced and when it can be actually shown, I’ll be sharing images from the past 12 months in the coming weeks and months. One of the biggest evolutions in my work over the past years has been the integration of drone photography and video as well as full video production capabilities. These tools are important because they enable me to tell stories with even greater impact. Not every project or story calls for (or needs) video, but I’m excited to now have the option to use a wide variety of storytelling tools—audio, video and stills—that can best create powerful, moving brand stories.

Over the following weeks and months, I’ll share images and stories that illustrate this point. Given the nature of my work, there’s often a lag time between when my work is produced and when it can be shown. I’m excited about doing so and look forward to helping my clients create portraits and stories with impact.