How to improve an action photo: deploy the #LibDemDucks

With potholes in the news again and local elections hoving into view, now is a good time to repeat that standard advice: pothole photos don’t have to be boring. In fact, no political campaigning photos have to be boring.

Far too many political ‘action’ photos show someone staring at a camera from a distance as if the message to convey is, ‘hey look: I’m a lonely person who is scared of coming too close to a lens’. Or, if you’re lucky, several people standing static in a line all looking at the camera.

I say if you’re lucky, because at least they are all looking in one direction. More usually, they’re looking in different directions as if they’re not only scared of the lens but also scared of looking at anything someone else is also looking at.

Which is why the fashion which started a few years back of using plastic ducks in political action photos is good news. Not perhaps the most obvious of props, but… that itself makes them a fresh way to illustrate an old problem. Potholes.

As this example from Cheltenham illustrated:

You don’t have to use ducks. You can use Barbie dolls. Or half a torso.

For more on how to get the best out of photos (and why the cliché about a photo being worth a 1,000 words isn’t true) see 101 Ways To Win An Election.