The Image-Consumer

In David Hurn’s book “On looking at photographs: A practical guide” I came across an interesting term:

“The image-consumer”

Each and every one of us is a picture-consumer. Whether we work in advertising or not. We are picture-consumers when we’re taking photos, when we’re changing our phone wallpaper, when we’re watching TV or when we look at photos of our friends on Facebook. We like to feed on pictures on a daily basis.

I think that from the picture-consumer theory we can deduce that there are three types of consumers:

1. The typical image-consumer
The regular man who looks at the package without caring so much about the color (and if the price makes a difference the package does not matter anymore). The man who browses Facebook answering with likes and comments on his friends daily photos. The man who takes a picture of a nice looking coffee on a Saturday morning. This picture-consumer enjoys a picture to a certain level and to him what’s nice is nice and that’s pretty much it. He does not get into details about contrast, color scheme or the visual impact that a picture can have.

2. The passionate image-consumer
He’s the one analyzing/studying every image around him (or he tries to do so). His behavior is sensitive towards visual. His job is analyzing the visual. Whether he works in advertising, whether he’s an artist or simply a visual creator (photographer, cameraman, etc.) He feeds on images with passion and he’s never satisfied. What is the difference between the passionate image-consumer and the typical image-consumer? Well, for example, let’s take Lorant Pandea (an Alba Iulia based instagrammer) and Mihai Oprean (an event manager from Cluj Napoca) Do you see the difference between their Instagram pictures? Yes, Lorant is the passionate one and Mihai is the typical one.

3. The personal image consumer
In this category falls everybody who puts an extraordinary emphasis/value on their personal brand. If you look at their Facebook/Instagram/Pinterest you will notice they always look good (or at least they want to look good). The kind of person who’s not yet a celebrity, but the fact that he has 100 followers on Facebook and 3000 friends gives him the status of a mini-mini-mini-mini-celebrity. I’m sure you also have such specimens among you. Surely you liked their personal brand page and even read the quotes they stole from Coelho or Maxwell.

In conclusion
We can be any type of image-consumers (typical, passionate or personal image), but this much is true: we are all image-consumers.

Image Consumer | Shutterstock