Images and photos – when used correctly – can be very effective in supporting your presentation. Personally, I would much prefer it if people used many more pictures in their presentations. It’s cliche but true: A picture is worth a thousand words. So imagine you are trying to explain to people about why they should visit Indonesia. You don’t tell them via bullet points: “Indonesia has 237 million inhabitants. Next: Indonesia has 17,500 islands. Next: On Bali there are many different excellent cultural events. In Jakarta you can enjoy life in one of Asia’s metropolitan cities.”
No, instead you should show pictures and make the audience “feel” Indonesia. Show them the beach, show them a picture of Jakarta’s night life, make them understand why Indonesia is so great.
Below, I have created a slide with some hard facts and as a contrast 3 images of Indonesia. As you are scrolling through them, assess what you’re feeling and think about which of these (the hard facts or the images) will persuade you more about how great Indonesia is.
This might be informative and have lots of facts and arguments why Indonesia is great, but…
… it’s much more effective to show images of Indonesia…
… and make the audience “feel” why Indonesia is awesome…
… and why a trip there is more than worth it.
The funny thing is, showing the 3 images probably won’t take any longer than going through the bullet points (yuck!) in the first slide above. I thought Willie Smits’ talk on regrowing a rain forest in Sulawesi (coincidentally, also in Indonesia) showed this contrast as well, since sometimes he used images to illustrate his points and sometimes he would used bullet points. Though you might look past all that since he was very passionate about his talk and you were just so drawn into the talk that you would ignore the bullet points.
More
- Need to find images for your presentation? Check out the big stock photo web site review.
- How to use images and compose them effectively using the Rule of Thirds.
- Don’t use too many bullet points and hard facts in your presentation, a great way to deliver facts from your presentation is through Presentation Handouts.
