“This idea fascinates me,” says David Hurn; “the idea that a few seconds of watching a photographer in action can tell you their status in the medium. And it’s true. If you watch a photographer of merit working an event, they do not look like an amateur ….”
–Jay, Bill; Hurn, David (1997-10-01). On Being a Photographer
Pros don’t spot pros due to gear; they spot them due to work habits when shooting.
One year, I was covering a workshop for college students in Nashville, TN, when I walked into a theater; everyone in the class was down the front, and the teachers were sitting on the edge of the stage. So after shooting a few photos around the show, I went up on stage behind the teachers to get a good shot of the students listening to the instructors.
Just as I did that, the entire class broke up laughing. Talk about an awkward moment for me, but quickly Anacleto Rapping, one of the teachers, let me in on the laughter. He had noticed I was covering the meeting and was teaching these photography students that if they just waited, Stanley would come up on stage and take some photos.
My walking on stage to take photos in that situation would be very typical for a photographer doing reportage on the event.
When I teach students, I am teaching actions that will give specific results if they do. Put light and the subject here, and you will get a unique look.
What is critical to understand is while the results will vary from each photographer, most all successful photographers will fully explore a subject. They will move around the object and, due to physical limitations, will most likely avoid similar photos.
Photo by Dorie Griggs
How a photographer holds the camera is often a giveaway that they know what they are doing.
Would a professional photographer acknowledge that you are a fellow pro or a ranked amateur just by watching you work?
Most all professionals will not conclude that because of how you shoot, you are a great photographer; what they are completing is that from your actions alone, they would approach it similarly.
I can spot a pro even when they are using a point-and-shoot. Can you?
The arabica coffee is grown in high altitudes under the shade, as you can see with this plant in Mexico.
Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
–Thomas A. Edison
A few blogs earlier, I discussed the importance of picking a good subject. Here is a link to that blog. Once you have your subject, construct an outline of how you would tell the story. Here are some photos from my last coverage of Mexico’s coffee farmers’ cooperative. I am going back to do more stories on them in November.
As the coffee growers brought in groups from churches and civic groups to see how their cooperative was doing, that helped them add water filtration for their communities from the profits.
Take these categories if you need to as a starting place and fill in for each of these things you would shoot.
Opener: Sets the scene for the story
Decisive moment: The one moment that can by itself tell the story
Details: Besides being like visual candy to the report, help often with transitions–especially in multimedia packages
Sequences: give a little variety to a situation
High overall shot: Gives a good perspective on how the elements all fit together.
Closer: Besides the classic shot of the cowboy riding off into the sunset, there are other visual ways to help bring the story to a close
Portraits: These photos are great for introducing the characters of the story
Because I had a list of things that coffee farmers’ families benefited from when I saw this moment of the kids taking their projects to school, and the joy on this girl’s face let me know I could check this off the list.
These are from a story I did on coffee farmers in Mexico that formed a cooperative. Before the cooperative, they made so little money many of them were crossing the border as illegal immigrants so they could work to earn enough to feed their families, which usually stayed behind.
Part of the process of coffee is spreading it out on concrete slabs and letting it dry. No need to shoot this over and over; I had it.
I needed to tell two stories. First, about how the coffee the cooperative grows is the finest Arabica. I also needed to tell the story that after joining the joint, the lives of the farmers and their families improved.
I am working on the story of the cooperative coffee farmers in Mexico when one night, we go and enjoy a meal with some of the coffee farmers’ wives. They have formed a cooperative and run a take-out restaurant. While the photo isn’t stellar, the concept of the joint moving beyond just coffee shows the power of creating a cooperative.
As you are there, one day, this incredible moment happens that you had not planned for or even knew happened. You make a portfolio shot even. You add this to the package. In the end, putting your total package together might cut, and it might not. You can go off script, but the writing helps you tell the story. You may even change up the outline as you are shooting. The system helps you start and navigate the story better than getting up in the morning, grabbing your camera, and just waiting for something to happen so you can capture it.
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
― Benjamin Franklin
Here is a brief outline of what I had before shooting the story on the coffee cooperative.
Showing the coffee on the plant and being harvested
Removal of what is left of the fruit from the bean
Drying coffee on slabs of concrete
Roasting the coffee
Bagging the coffee and grinding the coffee
Coffee farmers working in each of those settings
Coffee farmers in their homes
The families and what they do (mainly to show before and after)
Show how dangerous crossing the border is for a person
Showing them remembering all those who died crossing
Showing putting water in the desert for crossers
Maybe show some in the desert waiting to cross in darkness
Show what happens when border patrol finds them
Without a list, you may spend 80% of your time just growing the coffee, but by having a list, you can divide your time and have a storyline that will come together.
Talking of bad photographers, I have often heard it said that one of their characteristics is that they look at their contacts in order to discover which is the best picture, whereas a good photographer examines each frame on a contact sheet and asks: why is this one not a good picture?
[Jay, Bill; Hurn, David (1997-10-01). On Being a Photographer]
I am reading the book On Being a Photographer. You can get the Kindle version through Amazon for $5.95.
The book is in its third edition; I cannot recommend this enough for young and seasoned photographers.
The Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar had Jay Maisel down to speak one year. He had recently switched to digital and loved it. I remember we were talking, and he pulled out of his breast pocket a memory card case and said this was all he needed compared to all the instances of the film he used to have to take on jobs.
Then he talked about his shooting the day before around his place in New York City. He pulled up his camera and gave it to me to look through what was the raw take.
David Hurn’s experience and mine have been that bad photographers don’t want you to see their raw take, whereas the seasoned pro welcomes it.
Jay Maisel demonstrated it by just giving me his camera and letting me look through the images.
36 – exposure 35mm film contact sheet of mine from 1987
In the book, Hurn talks about the “Contact Sheet.” Well, for the most part, these are things of the past when we all shot film. For example, most editorial photographers would shoot 36 exposure rolls of film and then make a contact sheet after processing the film.
The “Contact Sheet” was our first time seeing the images. Of course, now you can look at the back of your camera and see individual photos, but ingesting your pictures into a browser like PhotoMechanic or Lightroom lets you see the entire take as a whole, which is where you learn more than any other place in photography.
There are a few things seasoned pros all have in common, no matter what we shoot.
Most will shoot a frame or two as notes to themselves. It is common to see a scoreboard during a sporting event, so I know when something happens in the game. The play-by-play notes that I have at the game that I can access after the event will help me match the frame up to the time clock. Also, it makes it easier to write a better caption.
It is also common for me to shoot a frame that is just personal notes for myself.
While shooting a subject, things will change to where you will see the photographer explore the topic. So while the audience will only see maybe one photo of a scene as the final selection, the photographer didn’t just walk up, see it and click.
Assuming photos are just one click is what most bad photographers and beginners think or do themselves. As a result, they fail to explore the subject.
If it is a static subject like the Lincoln Memorial, the photographer will walk around it looking for an angle that evokes the emotion they feel. Then, they may come back later and shoot it at night, as I did here many years ago.
As we look at all the images we took before making corrections, the seasoned pros will look consistent in exposure, sharp and good color. Then the pro will go from frame to frame, pondering what they could have done to improve the photo.
Should I have stepped to the left or right more? Should I have been closer or further back? What would it have looked like with a different lens?
When the subjects are moving, I look for a moment when everything is coming together to a peak moment. Enlarge the first photo at the top of the grid of images. Then look from frame to frame. Which picture is better than another photo, and why? Now, if you were there and knew what I was trying to capture because of the conversation, this would help guide you to pick the photo that best communicates.
What happens if I realized that the photo would have been better if I had done something small? A moment is what most seasoned pros will tell you. They are looking for the perfect print and realize there is so much they cannot control that they only get close.
If the subject is static, there is less room for not getting it perfect, but when the subject is moving and you are capturing life as it happens, you get close and rarely obtain the ideal image.
By studying the contact sheet or thumbnails in a group, we can know how to anticipate better rather than react the next time we encounter something similar.
The more you study the whole take and evaluate your work, the more you realize how vital planning will help you do a better job next time.
Another thing most seasoned pros do is, after reviewing their work, they put it away for a couple of days when possible.
Giving yourself some downtime serves to distance me from the emotion of the picture-taking moment so that I am better able to see the image dispassionately. Too often, when we look at our pictures, we remember the event’s excitement, which becomes mixed up with our calm judgment of the results. Then again, if an image was tough to shoot, we justify it: something so hard to achieve must be worthwhile. For these reasons, I like to show the contacts to a photographer I respect. This person is unaware of my feelings, can cut through my memories and fantasies, and will only see what is in the image itself.
– David Hurn
Hopefully, you are starting to see that professional photographer isn’t shooting all the time. However, they are doing a lot of planning and evaluating their work, so the next time they shoot, the odds are more in their favor.
Girl worker in Carolina Cotton Mill, 1908 photo by Lewis Hine
Lewis Hine’s photographs of children working as slave laborers in plants were instrumental in changing the child labor laws in the United States.
Spinner in Vivian Cotton Mills, Cherryville, N.C. photo by Lewis Hine
The subject is paramount for Hine. At the time of the publication, the standards just were not good. So you don’t read about Lewis Hine complaining about the work’s reproduction. The reason is simple; he was more concerned about the subject matter getting seen and letting it impact the audience.
Hine understood that photography was a tool that helped him convey a passion for a subject. However, photography was not to be the result for Hine. Instead, he wanted the country to see the conditions children were being asked to work in for a slave labor role.
The photo I took while working at The Hickory Daily Record.
My first full-time job as a photographer was working for the Hickory Daily Record. One of my daily ongoing assignments was the featured photograph. I was to make a photograph of the community that would engage the audience.
It didn’t take long before I realized I had very few ideas. I then took a picture of my family of ministers. They often preached on themes.
I started thinking of what city workers did each day for us. I then thought about some of the most challenging jobs on a hot day.
What I was doing was searching for a subject. Over time I learned how to do a better job of finding issues.
Get a notebook and carry it with you. Make a list of things that interest you. Start with something that you know a lot about. The best place is to start with your hobbies and interests.
Find three or four topics that interest you. The first mistake many of us make is picking just one subject to start with. However, selecting more than one subject from the start is essential. Go to the library or an Internet-connected computer at home and conduct a preliminary search of each topic.
Determine which project idea can work with plenty of published material. This way, you can select an exciting and feasible final topic.
It must be visual. When you first do this, you will most likely scratch off things that you would put back later in your career. For example, at first, figuring out how to photograph abstract thoughts like philosophy will not make the cut, but later as you get better, you will discover a new way to capture those thoughts.
It must be ongoing. It would help if you had a subject that you could revisit over and over to explore all the possibilities thoroughly. A good topic will be thought-provoking. As you edit your photos and think about what you are trying to say about the subject, you find better ways to communicate.
Of interest to an audience. You cannot be self-centered, or your audience is one. You become like the paparazzi who track celebrities due to the audience being willing to pay a lot for access to the subject. In the book On Being a Photographer, David Hurn says, “So there is an excellent line between pandering to popular appeal and a respectful consideration of viewers’/listeners’ attention-span or interest in the content.”
This photo is of a group of illegal immigrants across the border from New Mexico in Mexico as they prepare to cross with the help of a coyote.
One of my subjects is missions. One of the subjects within missions is helping people. Lately, I have become more aware of the problems with illegal immigration. What are the causes for this to be happening to people?
While I know the problem is super complex, one of the root causes is the lack of opportunity where someone lives, and they look for a place to sustain them.
A few years ago, I covered one part of this by digging deep into the coffee growers in Mexico that were crossing the border illegally. Hard to understand when global coffee consumption is second to crude oil. The number 2 commodity in the world, yet as I drink my $5 cup of coffee, we had illegal coffee farmers here because they could not support themselves or their families.
I am returning to do a follow-up story this fall. Here is the first package I produced to help this cooperative spread its message. It has helped all the communal farmers to remain in Mexico and not just get by but thrive.
In Mexico, the peak time to pick coffee is November through March.
Like Lewis Hine, who had to plan his coverages, I, too, have made plans to cover the coffee. , However, first, I needed to pick the best time of year to see the operation. By planning my trip between November and March in Mexico, I will have the best opportunity to see the coffee on the plant and capture the entire process.
I am going in early November because the weather is the best travel time.
Access to the process requires me to work with the coffee growers and work with a translator since I do not speak Spanish.
There are two main stories I want to capture on this trip in various ways. First, I want to show how this is high-end coffee and tell the story of the coffee itself. Also, I think the story of how coffee impacts the coffee growers’ families.
Why these two threads? I have discovered this from reading books by Seth Godin and others.
Seth Godin says to create a story that shows how you’re different, which helps to earn you the right to sell to people. Then the second thing he stresses is to sell the story rather than the product. Too many make the mistake of thinking buyers base their decisions on logic. For example, people pay up to $5 a quart for bottled water because (so the story goes) it’s “healthier” than tap water.
