Subject: The wrong picture of a broken toaster Preheader: A small test for the image taking up half your email.
I spent forty minutes choosing a photograph for our neighborhood repair afternoon. In the winner, a red toaster sat on a scarred wooden bench. Sunlight caught its chrome lever. You could practically hear a documentary starting.
Then Len, who runs the afternoon, asked me to use the ugly one.
His picture had fluorescent lighting, a folding table, and an extension cord wandering out of frame. It also showed the entrance, a cardboard sign saying WALK IN, and a woman handing over a desk lamp. My toaster photograph could have advertised a $240 toaster.
We needed people to bring broken things to a room above a hardware store. I had given them an attractive object to admire. Len had shown them what arriving would look like.
Before rejecting Len's picture, I had cropped out the walk-in sign above the door. The crooked cardboard bothered me. I straightened the image, trimmed away the stairs, and produced a much better photograph of a table nobody would know how to reach.
Try this on the next photograph you put in an email. Cover the headline with your thumb. Write down what the image alone tells a stranger to expect. My first note said “premium atmosphere.” My second said “a toaster being sold.” Neither described the Saturday we were inviting people to.
For our repair afternoon, the useful answer was: bring a small electrical item up these stairs and sit across from someone who will look at it. The photo couldn't promise a repair. It could show that you wouldn't be leaving your lamp in a mysterious pile.
Then check the crop at phone size. Our walk-in sign survived the desktop preview but lost its final two letters in the narrow version. WALK looked like an instruction to keep going. We pulled back the crop and let the extension cord stay.
One exception: sometimes the object is the information. A cracked hinge photographed close enough to show its screw holes might be exactly what a replacement-parts email needs. For that email, I'd crop out the repair table and give the hinge the whole frame.
Our final caption was “Saturday, 10 to 1. Upstairs at the hardware store at 19 Bell Street. Bring the broken item and its power cord.” I moved the toaster photograph into the folder marked OBJECTS. Len's picture went into the email.
Next week: the printed flyer I made too small to read while carrying groceries.
Reply with the picture you almost used, and tell me what the email needed it to do. I still owe Len an apology for the stairs.