February 23, 2007

A Picture Is Worth $1,000

The Tennessean has a follow-up to yesterday's blogger-driven news that the state's Department of Tourism was advertising Tennessee with a photo of Alaska. Today's story reveals that back in the 1980s the state government set up a two-person state photo office "to consolidate equipment and prevent agencies from having to use contractors and free-lancers" - in other words, to save money - but neither the Tourism Department nor its outside ad agency bothered to use the state photographers or their archive of 210,000 photographs.

If the Tourism department and its Memphis ad agency weren't going to use the archive or the state's official photographers, perhaps they should have checked Flickr: I found 848 photos on Flickr searching for "Tennessee leaves", 4,534 photos by searching for "tennessee fall", and 1,380 photos by searching for "Tennessee autumn.". The picture here comes from Flickr member "Rocket City Poet."

A suggestion for the Tourism Department: For the next ad campaign, use the state's photographers and search the state's photo archives - but also make a news announcement seeking photographs from Tennessee residents. Announce what kinds of photos you are seeking, and haave a photo contest, with the winner or winners getting prizes. You'd be amazed by the quality of photos you receive.

A suggestion for the state government regarding its photo archive: Put it online and make it easily accessible to everyone in state government. You might also consider making it accessible online to the general public - which paid for and therefore owns every image in the archive. Making it easily accessible online to state employees might result in it being used more, while allowing the public easy access would do nothing but spread more images of Tennessee to a broader audience for free.