Using the pictures

Real machines, real paddocks, honest light. A plain photograph of a unit doing its job beats a polished studio shot, because plain is what gets believed.

The three pictures

Almost everything you make will use one of three kinds of photograph.

The machine working. A unit behind a tractor, mid-pass, in a real paddock, boom out. This is the workhorse image.

The person. A named grower on their own place, in their own gear. Always with their permission, and always with their name and district beside them.

The result. Pasture or crop, close enough to see what is actually there. This is the one that has to be true, so be careful with it.

Get them from the asset library rather than pulling images off the website.

Pictures make claims too

Run every picture through the same question you would run a sentence through: is this showing what happened, or promising what he will get?

• A shot of impossibly lush pasture next to a product claim reads as a yield promise, even with no words on it.
• A healthy looking cow next to fertiliser content is an animal health claim made with a picture. There is no caption that rescues it.
• A glossy before and after is a performance claim whether or not there is a number on it.

Keep stock away from animals. If they are in shot at all, they are incidental and in the background.

Never

• Stock photography of farming. A stranger in a clean checked shirt leaning on a fence undoes every honest sentence on the page.
• AI generated farm scenes, machines or people. It is stock photography with extra steps and it fails the same test.
• Machines photographed clean in a yard. It reads as a showroom. The product is working equipment.
• Anyone's photograph without their permission.

If you have not got the right photograph, use a plain coloured tile and ask for the photograph you need. That is a much better outcome than a fake one.

Putting text over a photograph

White text on a photograph works right up until it does not, usually on the one bright patch of sky.

The practical version:

Look at the lightest part of the picture behind your text, not the average. That is where white letters disappear first.

• If the photo is genuinely dark behind the text, a dusk shot or a shaded row or a close-up of the machine, you can put white text straight on it.
• If it is a bright paddock or a big sky, put a dark wash over the whole photograph before the text goes on. Around 45% black is the standard.
• Over video, always use the wash, no exceptions. One still frame looking fine proves nothing about the other nine hundred.

If you are squinting at it to check, it needs the wash.

Practical bits

• Shape. Roughly 4:3 for a card or tile. 16:9 for video.
• Light. Overcast, or the back half of the afternoon. Midday sun blows out the white tank and loses the boom against the sky.
• Do not push the colour. Making the grass greener in editing is the fastest way to lose a farmer. He knows what his own pasture looks like.
• Describe the picture in the alt text or caption: "Multi 2800 applying foliar fertiliser on Manawatu dairy pasture." Say what is happening, not "farm photo".