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| Pigeons in flight, Plaza Catalunya, Barcelona. We'd traveled all night yet Peggy insisted we stay up till bedtime. By the we got to the Plaza or Placa with a lisp in Catalan I was asleep on my feet. |
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| Catching rays, Plaza Catalunya, Barcelona. We were both laying down with out heads on our carry-ons when I took this midday beauty. I may have dozed off at some point but I'll never admit it. That evening we chanced upon a little tapas pace on the Gran Via. It was 11pm when we left. The next day we were acclimated and ready to boogie. |
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| Tourist throngs, Las Sagrada Familia, Barcelona. Gaudi's masterpiece was three blocks from our hotel in the charming L'eixemple neighborhood. |
When I limited my images to four last week, I intended to
reduce it to three this week then two and one. I also aimed at mixing it up so
the images wouldn’t all be from, say, Barcelona. Yet the images needed to hang together
as if on a gallery wall. That proved a daunting objective. This less is more
approach stems from a Ted Talk that showed that too many choices can lead to
fewer sales or clicks than fewer more selective choices. One of the research
projects was of the olive oil selection in a big box store that displayed sixty
brands and another that offered eight. The research showed that the smaller
eight variety selection yielded more sales. It made some sense to me, and I
could fathom how too many choices might lead to confusion and fatigue. So, the question
becomes what is the ideal number of olive oils that represents variety but
encourages sales. I don’t claim to know. In my posts I typically offer five or six photographs appropriate to
the theme of the post and that still seems reasonable. My marketing consultant
seems to think fewer yet might be better and less images might not cause attention
deficit disorder. Another result of posting fewer images should be that they
are better ones. Addition by subtraction is another way to frame it. A subset
of this pursuit is not to post images that are too similar. If the image doesn’t
tell a different story than its companions don’t use it.
So, here are a paltry three images all from Barcelona. I was
unable to choose that few images from three different locations and have them flow to my
satisfaction. I’ll keep working to that end. It’s a work in process, kiddos.
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3 comments:
It is true that marketing folks seem to be stuck on certain edicts of the field, like less is more, and to a certain extent that is true. There is a sweet spot between having a decent number of items from which to select and a huge number that elicits eye rolls. However, I certainly want more than three choices when it comes to olive oils. Some stores offer perhaps twenty, and for me, I still don't find what I want. So presentation and sales should not be tied exclusively to numbers. And it also depends on your audience. As you said, presenting the best images is more important, and if there are a number of excellent ones, why not present them all? That can be done as you are doing it, in sections. Glad you are still winnowing away at your street photography images.
As your marketing consultant I have to say that I think you are on to something. I love all three of these photos and am particularly drawn to the one with all the pigeons. So, indeed, if you had only posted one, especially that one, it would still be a winner of a post with anticipation of more to come in your next post.
As for sales vs the number of choices, I would have to go with the results of the olive oil experiment. It might be fun to look at 100 different olive oils but that makes it a lot harder to choose if one only has 6 to choose from ..... assuming the 6 are all great oils.....
Says you.
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