Photography taught me marketing before a class did

I started photographing sports in high school, in August 2021. I thought I was learning shutter speeds. I was actually learning marketing.

You are never the audience. The photo I liked best was rarely the one a player’s family wanted. They wanted the one where their kid’s face was visible and the ball was in frame. Learning to shoot for the person who will actually use the image is the same skill as writing for the person who will actually read the email.

Speed is part of the product. A great photo delivered a week after the game is worth less than a good one delivered that night. Campaigns work the same way: relevance has a clock on it.

People share what makes them look good. Nobody reposts an ad. They repost a picture of themselves at their best. Every piece of content I plan at work now gets the same test: would the person in it send this to a friend?

More than fifty shoots later, the camera is still how I think. Marketing just gave me the vocabulary.