poco_bw – Lucian Coman Photography

Marketing/ Advertising During COVID-19

  The COVID-19 outbreak has undoubtedly affected all aspects of our lives, including marketing. Given the current situation, you are most likely incorporating the pandemic into your content and messaging. As this is mostly new ground, you are also most likely trying to figure out how to stay relevant while also being appropriate during such an unprecedented time. The good news is that people seem to still be responsive to advertising in general. According to a study conducted by Twitter: 64% said brands should continue advertising products as normal 52% agreed that seeing/hearing ads gives them a sense of normality 77% agreed they feel more positively about brands making an effort to support society at the moment   We have compiled some guidelines that we believe will help you successfully market your business.   Be authentic   It is extremely important to create strong connections with your customers, especially if you are inserting your brand into the conversations of today. Advertising campaigns that will excel are the ones that stay true to their brand and values.   Revisit your creative often   Many brands are choosing to be nimble in making necessary changes in this environment. For example Ford pulled […]

Easy tips to make your videos look more professional

Sometimes a photo is not enough to convey a message. Videos help add an extra layer of depth and emotion to anything you want to portray. However the dynamic nature of videos means that there are more factors to consider when producing one.  Here are some easy tips to make any video look more professional. Plan your video content   The content of your video is much more important than the quality. That isn’t to say that quality is not important, but if there is one aspect that needs extra time and energy, it is the planning of your content. Unlike photo shoots where “photoshopping” a mistake does not take long, video content is much less forgiving. So before grabbing the camera consider the following: Outline your goal Know your vision Scout a location ahead of time Plan your shooting day Use light effectively   Lighting makes an enormous difference in the quality of your finished video. Proper light positioning can mean the difference between a flat bland video and a striking evocative shot. The sun is one of the best light sources for video. If you’re filming in natural light, do your best to get your footage in the […]

Christmas Photography Tips

Take Your Holiday Photography to the Next Level!   It’s that time of the year again. The festive mood starts spreading, the Christmas tree is going up and more importantly everyone is happy to gather around it with their loved ones again. This certainly make for an energetic and exciting period to immortalize some truly beautiful memories. And what better way to do that than capturing some stunning images. Here are some tips for shooting breath-taking holiday photos. 1. Christmas Lights & Ornaments Some staples you’ll find in nearly every Christmastime photograph are the Christmas lights and ornaments, but they’re also a cliché staple. You’ll want to find ways to utilize them in inventive ways – extreme close ups or just having them dominate the frame where the “subjects”, the people, populate the background to give dimension and suggest depth. Another interesting and effective technique you can employ when photographing ornaments and Christmas tree lights is the Bokeh technique. With Bokeh, you use the blurred or soft focus part of an image (that’s just outside of the depth of field) as part of the image composition. 2. Express Relationships The holiday season is all about family and relationships. The stress […]

360° Photographs – A Breakdown

An Overview – 360° Photographs and Your Business 360° Photographs and high-quality Virtual Tours can ideally be placed in communication projects and/or Internet promotions. How can your business benefit? 360° Photographs will allow the visitor to see the environment, the service or the product at its best. The clearness and completeness of the way you communicate will be appreciated. A point in your favour. Compared to the many static photographs, although well made, the 360° Images will immediately capture the visitors’ attention and make sure that your message makes a greater impression than the others! Imagine the implications of 360° -degree photography and video in the field of tourism. If you’re unsure about your hotel or your destination, you can submerse yourself in an engaging experience to see what the places are really like. One thing is for sure, 360° -degree photography is becoming an important medium and is seeping into the VR experience as we speak. 360° video or photography can be incorporated into your webpage to create an interactive experience for your clients. 360° -degrees has truly opened up a new world of possibilities and produced a new method of advertising.   How Can 360° Images Be Viewed? […]

360° Photos

If a traditional photo is worth one thousand words, a 360° photo is worth ten thousand because people will do more than just look at it — they will interact with a 360°  photo. They will move about in the photo trying to get a sense of a place.  A 360° photo or video can be used on Facebook, Google, YouTube, etc. I have taken my fair share of 360°  photos for business owners and I see the data on Google Maps because I am a “Trusted Professional” in the Google Streetview For-Hire program.   Just a few examples of businesses: Restaurants and cafes Hotels and lodges Real estate and Property development Stores and shops Airbnb Car show room Gyms Function Rooms and Venues Corporate functions https://www.facebook.com/360Botswana/ https://www.facebook.com/luciancomanphotography/ http://www.africaphotobank.com/ People are interested in having a good look, try before you buy era is now and what better way to showcase what a business has to offer than to let them inside. The See Inside service goes above and beyond – from Airbnb, shops, car interiors, inside homes, holiday parks, gyms – bringing to life your space in the internet in a way like never before.     Stats that speak […]

Allegedly suicidal pilot crashes into Matsieng Flying Club

Suicidal Pilot or accident ? On Saturday the usual boredom of Botswana was shocked when allegedly Charl Viljoen, 37, crashed a Beechcraft King Air B200 aircraft into the Matsieng Flying Club at the Matsieng Aerodrome in Rasesa, where moments before around 50 people were celebrating a baby shower. Allegedly, the aircraft advanced towards Matsieng Aerodrome from the direction of Sir Seretse Khama Airport at around 6:15 pm. It proceeded to fly past the club several times at low altitudes. On its final approach the pilot steered the aircraft into the ground floor of the flying club building, destroying it and several adjacent cars. The pilot was confirmed dead.

Tips for better 360 photos.

Better 360 photos You have a smartphone or a 360 camera and you want to do fun 360 photos for Facebook, or put the interior of your business on Google maps; here are a few things to remember: 1. You need to remember that the camera will capture everything surrounding it, for a selfie, hold your device more than 1-meter distance from you to avoid excessive distortion (a selfie-stick does wonders). For business photos of your location just hide from the view. 2. For outdoors photos make sure the sun is “between the lenses” so your light can be uniform when you “stitch” the photo. 3. For a perfect horizon line, the camera needs to be always in an upright position. It shouldn’t be tilted backward, forwards or to the sides. 4. Bring a cloth and clean the lenses often, even a slight smudge can cause blurry and unusable pictures. 5. 360 pictures mean the viewer can look anywhere, find the most interesting part of the action and point the front lens towards it, that will be your focal point. 6. Position the camera in the center of a scene so there is plenty to look at in every direction. 7. […]

How to take good photos with your phone

How to take good photos with your phone Are you using social media for business advertising ? Follow these tips and tricks to take  better photos with your phone. People are uploading billions of photos to the internet daily, particularly social networks like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. Photography is the language of social media, and the smartphone is its tool. If you are using social media for business purposes, you need to know a few basic tips and tricks for better results. 1.     Keep the lens clean A dirty lens will often result in pictures that seem cloudy, as the oils and dirt can diffuse and diffract light entering the lens. If you have a microfiber cloth what you clean usually your glasses use it. 2.     Try using the rule of thirds ©unsplash The idea behind the rule is that photos are more interesting when their subjects align with imaginary lines that divide the photograph in thirds, both horizontally and vertically. Photographing subjects slightly off-center often creates a more “balanced” image, and gives a greater sense of space and motion. 3.     Pay attention to lighting A general rule to follow is to make sure that the primary source of light, be […]

Donkey skins are the new ivory

I was traveling on a short tour from Gaborone to Jwaneng , Orapa and as any photographer on the way I was stopping and taking random photographs. I spotted this guys on some pans near a village. Looks like we will be alright, villagers are still using them for transport. Donkeys are the backbone of many farming villages in Botswana. The animals’ ranks have thinned dramatically, the primary cause is neither disease nor declining demand for live donkeys, but instead a burgeoning market for their hides. From 2011 to 2016, the number of donkeys fell by 60% in Botswana. Since ancient times the Chinese have consumed ejiao, a gelatine made by boiling and refining donkey skin to produce a tonic taken as an elixir. Botswana banned the export to donkey skin to China a while ago, and the numbers start increasing significantly. poco_bw

Jwaneng diamond mine.

Jwaneng diamond mine. I do industrial photography for a long time, and this HDR panorama of the pit of Debswana Jwaneng mine is one of my favorites. Was not the best time of the day to shoot and the sun was o harsh, the gear was “on”  for few hours in the sun and was “boiling”. It took 27 photos to stitch, captured 2 stops of light apart, after a lot of tweaking the result was a 46 megapixel panorama. I wish I had with me the pole and the motorized head to get a Birdseye view at the edge, unfortunately is a whole new story to go inside with such heavy gear. In the full size panorama you can see the drills, excavators, trucks, bulldozers, etc. what I guess will do an amazing large print, but in this resized picture they simply vanished.   The Jwaneng diamond mine is the richest diamond mine in the world by value and is located in south-central Botswana about 120 kilometers west of the city of Gaborone, in the Naledi river valley of the Kalahari. Jwaneng, meaning “a place of small stones”, is owned by Debswana, a partnership between the De Beers company […]