Give me hammers hammering

I recently completed a massive project, an on-line video course on dynamic presentation skills for an MBA program in international business.

I used hundreds of images, mostly from stock photo banks to reinforce the points I was trying to get across. It’s a method I often use, linking abstract concepts to concrete images in order to make them easier to understand and remember.

In the process of searching for appropriate images, I kept stumbling across the same problem; a disconnect between the way most stock photographers and presentation designers think.

While there are others, such as publishers and advertisers, that use stock photography, I would think that presentation designers are a major and growing market for such images. So perhaps it’s time for the photographers to consider how we use images.

To illustrate the problem, if you’ll pardon the pun, let me give you a concrete example. I was looking for an image to visually reinforce the point that the purpose of the conclusion in any presentation is to drive the message home. We use restatement and a call to action to drive our message deep into the audiences’ minds, just as a carpenter uses a final powerful hammer blow to drive a nail all the way into the wood.

I needed a vibrant, dynamic image of a hammer slamming in a nail so hard that it shook the whole frame, with a diagonal composition to convey energy and movement and a bit of blur to show movement. When it popped up on the screen, I wanted to be able to hear steel slamming into wood in my mind.

Unfortunately, the best I could find is the image above. When I put the word “hammer” into the stock photo banks’ search boxes, I got thousands of images of hammers, guys holding hammers, hammers laying on tables, yet very few images of the hammer actually doing anything.

It seems the photographer thought I needed pictures of hammers, when what I really need when I am presenting is images of concepts; hammers in action. I need hammers hammering and smashing, pounding and prying; not looking like hammers, but being hammers.

Don’t just give me images of things. Illustrate ideas, convey emotions and visualize idioms. Give me images of the top of the line and the bottom line, of pride and prejudice, profit and productivity. I don’t need yet another of the hundreds of examples of pretty, slack-jawed models in business suits shaking hands. Give me an image that screams, “It’s a deal”. Don’t give me a picture of a cash register, give me an image of the “Ka-ching.” Give me a way of making the intangible tangible.

Do that, and you’ll be amazed at how fast your images will move.