Through the Lens: World Photography Day
August 19 is World Photography Day, celebrating the art of a well-taken photo. In the OOH industry, we have our own vision of a well-taken image. These are often taken by someone standing patiently in front of those displays, waiting for the right moment: the photographers employed in the OOH industry. Their job is to document client campaigns as they go live in the real world.
Shooting OOH ads is a learned skill. For a good image that tells a story, it takes an eye for timing, light, and angle to capture an OOH asset as a driver, commuter, pedestrian, or patron might see it, whether that’s a highway board lit at dusk, a subway wrap glimpsed in passing, or a digital screen at a college student union.
And proof matters. That’s why we call it a proof of performance (POP). When a new billboard, bus wrap, or digital display launches, someone needs to capture it in context. The purpose of these proof-of-performance, glamour, beauty, or hero shots is to provide evidence, in its best light, that the campaign ad and location were installed as promised and appear similar to the original media buy. Without these images, media owners have few ways to show clients their creative in place and verify what they paid for. In this way, photographers aren’t just documenting a campaign; they help make it a success, giving clients confidence they made a good decision by using OOH and encouraging them to keep using our medium.
This work also promotes the industry to itself. A well-shot image of a client’s ad becomes marketing material in its own right, showing up in case studies, sales decks, and OBIE award submissions, making the case for OOH’s impact in a way that measurement alone cannot.
On World Photography Day, it is worth recognizing a specific corner of the profession: the photographers who document our clients’ campaigns. After all, OOH is an image business.
Steve Lind is a founder of FotoFetch, a crowd-sourced image company specializing in OOH photography throughout North America—a 45-year veteran of the OOH industry, with 34 years at OUTFRONT Media.
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