Choosing images to accompany blogs

Feedback is the breakfast of champions.

We value feedback from our clients, as it helps us constantly improve and refine our approach.

An email this morning from a client questioned our choice of a particular photograph to accompany a blog we posted last week about the predicted rise in dementia cases.

We selected a photo of an elderly lady on an escalator, possibly in a tube station or a shopping centre.

Our client pointed out that people with dementia would be very challenged to travel alone on the London Underground.

She asked whether this photo might not be creating the best image of the elderly and whether the subject was more likely to be a spry, independent lady who is becoming physically frail.

These are all good points.

Finding suitable images to accompany blog posts about care fees planning, one of our specialist advice areas, is always challenging.

We source the photographs which accompany our blogs from the Creative Commons library on Flickr, always crediting the photographer with a link back to their work.

The images we select are designed to reflect the message in the blog, occasionally to be deliberately provocative or thought provoking.

For example, we recently used this (frankly disturbing!) photograph when writing about the Money Advice Service being unfit for purpose.

The overweight man in the tutu and panda head still haunts my dreams…

In the case of the image used in the dementia blog, it’s a sad fact that dementia affects more women than men and more elderly people than younger people.

With hindsight, the setting for the lady in the photograph was not ideal (although could be left open to interpretation, as all good photos should be) but hopefully illustrated some of the main points in the blog itself.

We will continue searching the Creative Commons library for suitable images to illustrate our blog posts, taking on board this useful client feedback and seeing how we might improve on this front in the future.