Wherever possible, photography should always represent our people and place and avoid the use of stock photography.
Context
All corporate images taken by the Council for use both externally and internally must always reflect the Local Authority in a positive manner and, where possible, include relevant community groups, residents, service users or customers (with relevant permissions).
Where it is an official press photocall, it should always be organised by the Communications Team and must include the relevant Cabinet Member / Elected Member representative.
All images featuring people must include full captions which are spell-checked for accuracy.
When using on websites or social media all photography should have ‘alt text’ to make it fully accessible to all users. For advice, contact the Corporate Communications Team.
Framing
You should frame your images to ensure they work for the platform on which they are intended.
For websites, landscape images work best, whereas social media platforms can use landscape or portrait images (for vertical content on smartphones).
Quality
If the image is low quality or low resolution it will not be suitable for print, the larger the print, the higher the quality / resolution of the image you will need. It is vital that when sharing images with the Communications Team, you try to send the highest resolution image.
Most up to date mobile phones or tablets take a good quality image and you can rely on the camera’s auto settings to provide the best images. If you are in doubt, don’t be afraid to take a selection of images to make sure you get the best one for sharing.
GDPR / Permissions
We ask all service areas to ensure individuals or groups who are invited to appear on film or on camera are fully aware in advance of any filming or photography and have given consent using the GDPR compliant photo consent forms, available from the intranet or the Communications Team.