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Are You Promoting a Ghost Town?
July 6th, 2010 by Morgan Andenas
In Miner County, we are having a photo contest, but this is no ordinary photo contest. We have some amazing photographers in Miner County, and we want to be able to showcase their talent. By hosting the contest via Flickr.com and printing winners in the county paper, we are showing off their talent both locally and globally. But, that is not all.
The goal of our work through the Rural Learning Center and this blog is to give a new image to vibrant, rural communities. Besides showing off local talent, we want to show to the world what a great community Miner County is to live in. We want to show that there is more to this place than beautiful prairie vistas and wildlife.
With the help of our local photo club and newspaper, we strategically chose three contest topics that would promote pictures with people enjoying themselves. Turns out, we are not alone in this strategy.
According to Becky McCray at Small Biz Survival, “Putting people in your pictures gives you instant social proof. It draws your potential visitor into the story.” She goes on to point out that often times tourism websites post pictures of lots of wonderful things, but the pictures are void of any people. She warns that these websites start to advertise “ghost towns” instead of vibrant communities. She gives two examples in her post. While these photos are not the type of professional photos a community would use for advertising, they illustrate the importance of people in photos.
The first picture is a beautiful hotel lobby, but not a person in sight. You only see the stained glass skylight and the grand staircase. Her next picture is of the exact same lobby, but with about 7 people walking and sitting throughout the room. The difference is huge.
In her second example we see an arching palm tree overlooking blue waters and a lighthouse in the background. Directly below the first picture we see another palm tree on the same beach, but with a father and son feeding seagulls. Becky says, “Suddenly, there is a human story, an activity, an interest. A photo with people is able to tell a story. That’s a story the thing alone could never provide.”
Communities want to show off the “things” that make it great: the park, the stores, the great restaurant. But, when you ask, people often say that the people themselves are the best part of living there. All of the “things” are great, but if you can’t showcase the people enjoying those parks, stores, or restaurants, others won’t be able to see it either.
West Central Initiative Foundation of Minnesota had the same idea for their photo contest. They challenged their photo contest participants, “Show us what YOU think will make a difference to the future of west central Minnesota.” I’m happy to report that just about half of the pictures submitted so far feature the people of west central Minnesota.
Is your community promoting a ghost town or a vibrant place to live? If you could enter one of these two contests, what would you say is the future of your community?
Photo: Becky McCray on Flickr
Tags: photo contest, Small Biz Survival, tourism
Posted in Community Development, Uncategorized | Comments (
3 )
July 6th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Morgan, you’ve hit on the exact reason this is so important: “people often say that the people themselves are the best part of living there.”
Thanks for including me in the discussion.
July 6th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Becky, I’m glad you agree. I think one of the reasons people often can not pinpoint the exact reason they choose to live in rural America is that, in fact, it isn’t the parks, stores and restaurants, but the people. It is also one of the hardest things to capture and project to those outside the community. I think this is one reason that our small communities often don’t advertise well – the spirit of the people is hard to project.
Thank you for inspiring the post. I had wanted to write this for a couple weeks, but didn’t quite have the right words.
October 12th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
[...] family farm, and crop land. This is something the Rural Learning Center has thought about and is trying to change. We created a county-wide photo contest where community members uploaded their pictures to Miner [...]