Posting pictures of our
guests to social media is an easy and fun way to promote our show. I post
pictures of guests our viewers see on the show and guests our viewers may have
missed!
The vast majority of our
guests are truly worth documenting! Global Montreal Morning News features some
stellar names; from such international stars as James Blunt, Sarah Brightman,
Gino Vanelli, Roch Voisine, Chris Hadfield and Jason DeRulo - to such iconic Canadian
names as Caroline Ouellette, Roch Carrier, Conrad Black, Anthony Calvillo, Measha Bruggergosman and Mikael Kingsbury! On top of those more
recognizable guests, we get so many wonderful locally-known scientists,
athletes, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, actors, chefs, newsmakers, experts,
analysts, columnists and more. Montreal attracts a high caliber of individuals
and for that, we are fortunate.
Media outlets in smaller
markets may not have that same range of potential guests.
No noteworthy interviewee has turned
down my requests for a picture. I tweet the photos and post them to Facebook
and Instagram. There can be challenges, but the guest in the photo isn’t usually
the problem; the problem is more often the photographer. The photographer,
typically, snaps one quick, ill-considered photo and hands my iphone back to me.
Inevitably, someone in this
casually captured single moment could look better! Often, it’s both the guest
and I. The single picture is often badly framed, poorly lit, blurred,
unflattering, or includes part of the photographer’s digit!
I can’t count the number of
pictures I’ve deleted because they’re purely unpostable!
The only person who gets it
right is co-host Camille! I can rest easy when Camille snaps the picture.
It’s well framed, well lit and there are several alternate pictures available. Whew!
If she’s not in the studio
when I need the picture taken, I’ll
stall, keeping the guest there until she returns. If she hasn’t made it back in
time, then, reluctantly, I’m forced to grasp at straws.
Actress, singer, jewelry
designer and entrepreneur Caroline Neron came in for an interview right before
Christmas. Caroline is always energetic and fun. After the interview, with
Camille unavailable, I handed my smart phone to Caroline’s publicist. I urged her
to take more than one picture, warning a single picture often ends up with me
or a guest looking “like this”; I made a face.
The publicist laughed and announced
she had just snapped that picture.
I reacted to her
announcement by sheepishly blurting “oh no”, after which the publicist announced she had
just taken that picture, too!
It’s such a basic and simple
thing and yet the picture snapping process is fraught with peril, I tell you! Where’s
Camille when you need her?
Thanks to the patience of
Caroline and her publicist, we eventually got it right and I tweeted t a visually appealing picture.
A couple of weeks ago
Olympians and newly-crowned Grand Prix figure skating champions Meagan Duhamel
and Eric Radford came in for an interview. Camille wasn’t around and not
wanting to oblige them to linger, I hastily recruited someone else to take a picture. When
I looked at it afterward, it was so dark I wasn’t able to post it!
I much prefer looking at my
photo selection and saying, “oh, nice” instead of “oh, snap”!
