This is the Macchiato I was drinking at a restaurant during our Storytellers Abroad Multimedia Workshop in the Balkans. A Caffé Macchiato or Espresso Macchiato is a shot or two of espresso, with just a small amount of steamed milk that “marks” the espresso, though in some regions, the steamed milk comes first, and the espresso makes the mark. [Nikon D5, Sigma 35mm ƒ/1.4, ISO 100, ƒ/1.4, 1/400]

Most of my days start with a good cup of coffee. Every day I also do three things which I think you may do.

I look to the past. I often take a moment to reflect. I ponder what I have done this year and what happened a year ago.

Facebook even has a message that pops up most days about posts from the past.

Your Memories on Facebook

Stanley, we care about you and the memories you share here. We thought you’d like to look back on this post from 7 years ago.

Thanksgiving, I think, made all of us look back. We thought o a family that is no longer with us. We thought of past thanksgivings with family and friends.

This Saturday, my wife got a phone call from her friend Stacy Carter’s husband. Stacy had experienced a massive brain aneurysm followed by full cardiac arrest. She died later that night.

When we lose a loved one unexpectedly, this causes us to spend a lot of time reflecting.

I immediately thought of my children after thinking about Stacy’s two boys and her husband. I thought of how will my children do with me not here. I think about the future. What do I have to do later today, this week, and in the coming months?

I am at a lot more peace when I can look on my calendar and see enough work that I will be able to pay my bills for the next month or two. Freelancers are concerned about getting projects on the calendar to meet our obligations.

If there isn’t much on the calendar or nothing at all, I often panic. This is where I am thinking about what I can do to get some work.

I often take a few minutes to dream as well. What would I love to do in the future? Where would I love to go and see something new and adventurous?

I am often reflecting on my goals for life. At times I am adjusting to the circumstances to make plans that could potentially help me make those dreams a reality.

I think about the present. I take stock of where I am and my goals and then make my plans for the day, week, and even months ahead. This then has me active for the rest of my day.

I am writing emails, making phone calls, and working on ideas that need to be refined before I pitch them to my clients.

I also take some time to be thankful. Looking into my past, I can see the hardships I overcame to get where I am today. I also noticed that many people helped me along the way.

I am also reminded of how miraculous many of these people just came into my life at the right moment. I know these are what I call my “God Moments.” They cannot be explained any other way than there is something bigger than me at work in my life.

You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

2 Corinthians 9:11

Tomorrow has become “Giving Tuesday” in our country. Giving Tuesday, often stylized as #GivingTuesday for hashtag activism, refers to the Tuesday after U.S. Thanksgiving in the United States. It is a movement to create an international day of giving at the beginning of Christmas and the holiday. Giving Tuesday was started in 2012 by the 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation as a response to commercialization and consumerism in the post-Thanksgiving season (Black Friday and Cyber Monday).

This past weekend my wife and I saw The Man Who Invented Christmas. It is a biographical story of Charles Dickens writing A Christmas Carol.

In A Christmas Carol, we see how Scrooge deals with the Past, Present, and Future.

After the book came out, it revived much of the nostalgia and tradition we associate with Christmas today. Every time this piece of literature is read or displayed on the silver screen, it reminds us of a vision of Christmas that has little to do with displays of wealth and instead focuses on loved ones and the joy of an act of charity.

There are numerous accounts, from its publication through today, of people becoming exceptionally generous as a direct result of reading the story.

Take time today to look at your past, present, and future. I hope you, like Scrooge, can see that you can choose redemption as he did.

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”

― Charles Dickens

Daddy Daughter Date Night at the Memphis Zoo [Nikon D5, Nikkor 14-24mm ƒ/2.8, ISO 3200, ƒ/4, 1/15 – Godox V860IIN + Godox X1NT]

“Photography is not like painting,” Henry Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. “There is a creative fraction of a second when taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative,” he said. “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”

Capturing emotions requires you to feel the mood of the moment. I love this photo of the Chick-fil-A Cows with the daddy and daughter posing for me, while on the left, a dad is taking a selfie of himself and his daughter in front of the Ferris wheel.

When people pull out those phones and take selfies, I notice they are having a great time. They are also working hard to express themselves to match how they feel inside about the whole experience.

Seeing the joy on both dad and daughter as they skate together was great. But I love it even more when there is a little more interaction between people.

When the girl looks up at her dad, you can tell she thinks the world of dad. You can tell she is cherishing this moment.

I also saw dads looking at how much fun their daughters were having.

“Men are motivated when they feel needed while women are motivated when they feel cherished.”

― John Gray, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

The little things that dads did for their daughters that night touched me so much. One of the dads had bought a corsage for his daughter to wear. She was so proud of this gesture from her dad. He is setting the standard pretty high for the way she needs to be treated in the future.

Since I have covered Daddy Daughter Date Night since the 2nd one ever held at a Chick-fil-A in Olathe, Kansas, I was pretty much aware of many of the emotions I would experience, just like I know what plays a football team will call after covering them all season.

I was looking for moments when there was a genuine emotional connection between dads and daughters.

Chick-fil-A helped make the moments possible with Cows, Princesses, Ferris Wheel, Carousel, Music with DJ, and so much more.

I couldn’t just snap a photo because I saw and dad and a daughter. I had to wait for the moment between the two of them to start to happen. I had to anticipate those moments.

If you want better inspirational photos, you must start with feeling those moments and then be able to anticipate them to capture them.

“Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.”

— Yousuf Karsh

A father’s influence on a daughter’s self-image. A dad’s involvement in his daughter’s life is a crucial ingredient in developing a young woman’s self-esteem. … Direct involvement and encouragement by her father will help diminish a girl’s insecurity and increase her confidence in her abilities.

My favorite type of photos are where there is an emotional connection. Last night I was able to capture a lot of moments of dads and daughters enjoying the Memphis Zoo for a Chick-fil-A Daddy Daughter Date Night.

By putting my flash off camera for some of the photos, I was able to improve the light on the faces of the people to capture those expressions and then drag the shutter to pick up the background to add to the atmosphere.

The dads and daughters enjoyed dancing together.

They enjoyed a Carousel Ride as well.

The Important Role of Dad. While almost any man can father a child, there is so much more to the critical role of being a dad in a child’s life.

I watched as dads did everything they could to be sure their daughters were having a wonderful time.

Not all were as brave or good on ice skates as this dad. However, many did also take in the ice rink as well.

To walk the zoo could take a long time the zoo had its trams running to bring everyone around the zoo, cutting down on those long walks.

The Cow Celebrities were running around as well as the princess for the kids to enjoy being photographed with and to give hugs.

While I would have preferred to shoot everything with available light, the problem was that I found the people silhouetted by the glow of the events behind them. The flash also made them the essential part of the photo.

A good father makes all the difference in a child’s life. He’s a pillar of strength, support, and discipline. His work is endless and, often, thankless.

Roswell Fire Department [Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm ƒ/4, ISO 7200, ƒ/4, 1/100]

I have two fellow photojournalists that I love to hire when I need help. One is Robin Nelson, and the other is Michael Schwarz when meeting tight deadlines.

What all three of us have in common are newspaper and wire service backgrounds.

I have realized that we have a lot in common with Fire Fighters over the years. Have you ever visited a Fire Station? I know I did as a young preschooler.

You will notice they are ready to go at a moment’s notice. They have firefighter pants [Heat and Flame Resistant Clothing] with suspenders over their boots. Jacket hanging with their helmet and breathing unit nearby.

They are not there when they come back from a fire. Once they return to the firehouse, their first mission is to get everything ready to roll. They clean their uniforms; they tend the trucks, and any of the supplies that need restocking are done.

99% of the photographers I meet, if they were firefighters, would not have their boots and uniforms ready to go out the door.

What A.S.A.P Means to Wire Service

Shooting for a wire service like Associated Press means you get a shot, and as fast as you can get it out of the camera to your computer to caption it and upload it to the Associated Press server is expected. This “fast as you can” usually means less than 15 minutes, not like 2 or 3 weeks.

Each of us asks the client, “When is your deadline?” What surprises us is when they say A.S.A.P. each of us finds ourselves asking what they mean. Do you want it right after the event, the next day, or when?

When they say A.S.A.P., we all think we are ready to bring our laptops and turn them around in minutes, not days.

Why turn it around right away?

When I shoot about anything, I try my best to edit those images and get them to the client immediately. When I shot some weddings, which I rarely do, I had 2,500+ ideas for the bride and groom before leaving for their following honeymoon.

You see, my goal is to be ready like a firefighter. Too many photographers I have called to do assignments that have been too busy to take on another job. They were dynamic editing.

If you approach being a professional photographer the way firefighters do, you come home from a job and maybe go to bed, but the first thing you do is get that job edited and off the computer to the client.

The first thing I do is pull all my batteries and recharge them while editing. Once I have ingested the cards and have a backup, I reformat them so they are ready to shoot a new job.

I have different lighting kits ready for a various types of jobs. I have a speed light kit, studio strobe kit(s), and a video light kit prepared for any kind of jobs.

Once those images are delivered, I also scan all those receipts and create an invoice that goes to the client.

You could rarely call me, and I am not ready at that moment to walk out the door for any assignment. The only thing I can think of that would delay me getting on the plane anywhere in the world is only if the country requires a visa.

If you were to approach your business by getting your photography to the clients immediately and having your gear fresh and ready to go, your business would be on fire for the right reasons.

The camera that takes great pictures

How often do you feel insulted when some say your camera takes excellent pictures?

The reason so many people think this is because they treat photography like a commodity. They believe it is mainly the gear that takes photos.

When you give those people a Nikon D5, they will get better photos than the camera on their phone.

Your knowledge of how to use your photography gear makes you a professional photographer.

I believe you could take on the challenge of using every piece of your gear to capture a subject in as many different photography styles as possible. You would be changing the depth-of-field, controlling motion with your shutter speed, and pulling out your lighting gear to create so many different looks.

You could then show this client how you can take the same subject and give them many different looks. It might be a great way to talk about how knowing more about the purpose of hiring you will help you create the look and feel they need from your photos.

So much of our business revolves around tools. We often think of our gear as our only tools, but I was hoping you could think about other parts of your business as you do your camera gear.

Your business cards, websites, blogs, newsletters, phone calls, and postcards are all tools that have a great deal in common with your camera gear.

Too often, photographers treat their marketing tools like people think our cameras take great photos.

We create a website and then wonder why we are not getting calls. We print business cards and hand them out, and still no calls.

We even treat our photos the same way as clients. We hand them the images.

I have heard we are no longer living in the Industrial Age but rather the Information Age. The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age) is a period in human history characterized by the shift from traditional industry that the Industrial Revolution brought through industrialization to an economy based on information computerization.

What was the difference between being a farmer during the Agricultural Age and moving from the Industrial Age to the Information Age?

The farmer used animals to plow the fields and also fertilize those fields during the Agricultural Age. During the Industrial Age, it was about using tractors and artificial fertilizer [nitrogen] to increase productivity.

In the Information Age, farmers learned how to analyze the data from their farms and improve all farming areas. They used computer models that used satellite imaging data to put different amounts of fertilizer and water on their fields to get the best yield from all the land.

As a photographer, you must know how to use your marketing tools. You need to understand how they all work individually and how they work together. There is the best time to use each of those tools, and there are also times that using an agency can do damage if not implemented correctly.

The Client

I am discovering that many clients do not know how to use their marketing tools anymore. They don’t learn how to take a well-crafted story that is a video and integrate it into their communications plan. They think maybe they show it just at a meeting or put it online or some other tactic and do not know what the video’s strength is compared to their business card or a brochure.

Be sure you help to educate your client on how to use your content to best leverage their audience.

Living in the Information Age is about personalizing your services to address your client’s needs. This is the knowledge economy we now live in.

This evolution of technology in daily life and social organization has led to the modernization of information and communication processes, becoming the driving force of social change.

We have moved into an era where photography is used all the time. The professional photographer’s actual commodity is their knowledge of how to use and control it for clients.

The best way to help your clients understand how to use photography in their marketing and communications is to do a personal project in which you demonstrate how this can be done. Then you have an example to show to your clients.

This is the brand new Chick-fil-A at the bottom of the Ferris Wheel Skyview and along the tracks of the Atlanta Street Car in Downtown Atlanta, GA. [Nikon D5, Nikkor 14-24mm, ISO 400, ƒ/8, 1/500]

I was trying to find the proper perspective to capture the new Chick-fil-A in a container at the base of Atlanta’s Skyview off of Centennial Park in one photo.

The photo above was my favorite of all the pictures because I also lucked up and caught the Atlanta StreetCar in the image.

Just a few seconds before the first photo, I captured the train passing by.

When I first arrived, I shot this photo. I thought it captured the restaurant at the base of the landmark well.

I shot details shots all over and everything in between. While I didn’t have a drone, I decided to do the next best thing available and pay for a ticket to get the view of the restaurant that those who ride the Skyview would get from inside one of the Gondolas.

You can see the restaurant a few times from inside the gondola. So my job was not just to find the “One Shot” but to compliment the photo with details like this from inside the gondola.

I moved to the other side of the gondola and shot this to compliment the other photo on the next pass of the restaurant.

While this photo doesn’t show the restaurant, it gives an idea of why people are drawn to the Ferris wheel for a ride. You can overlook Centennial Park, a central gathering place during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games.

I went around looking for people at the restaurant as well.

I just kept looking for photos. These are a small fraction of what I shot.

Take Away Tips

Look for as many perspectives as possible
Go Super Wide
Go Close
Once you have a Wide shot, the medium shot, and the closeup, go and do it again, looking for something different. Do this until you have exhausted your ideas.

I had the pleasure of photographing  The Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta Gala, where they gave four Awards to those who have impacted Atlanta. The ISB seeks to build bridges between Muslims and the wider community.

The thing about my job is sometimes; I want to pinch myself to see if it is really what I am experiencing. Photographing the award honorees was a special honor.

Sally Yates is a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Justice Department and formerly served as a federal prosecutor in Atlanta. Most recently, she was the acting Attorney General who refused to enforce President Donald Trump’s first ban on travel from several majority-Muslim nations earlier this year, calling the order “unlawful.” Trump fired her for her decision.

Arthur Blank has given more than 300 million dollars to charity. Most recently, he has helped with the Westside neighborhood, including Vine City. The English Avenue/Vine City area has some of the highest poverty and crime rates in the city, with the Carter St. area surrounding the Vine City MARTA station ranking in 2010 as the #1 most dangerous neighborhood in Atlanta and #5 in the United States.

Blank said his family foundation would contribute $15 million, bringing the Westside Neighborhood Prosperity Fund’s total to $30 million. The fund goes towards housing, education, health, entrepreneurship, workforce development, and youth leadership.

I must admit attending this was the most diverse crowd I have been a part of in Atlanta. People from all faiths were in the room and of different nationalities.

While there were Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the room within each group, there was even more diversity. Muslims from India, Arab Countries, and many whose roots are from diverse American blend backgrounds. There was also a mix of Christians from many different denominations.

Besides covering the stage, I am also covering the VIP room with donors getting time to meet the Award Winners one-on-one and get their photos.

The volunteer working the VIP room and I spent some time talking before people arrived. She was super excited to meet Sally Yates, maybe. The volunteer was star-struck when Yates walked into the room. I just asked Sally Yates and her husband to get their photo made with her. The rest of the night, that volunteer thanked me.

I enjoyed talking with Bill Nigut. My wife Dorie told me he was what we listened to on our way to see our daughter in Columbus, GA. I told him I often listen to him and Greg Bluestein on his news show.

Years ago, while on staff at Georgia Tech, I photographed Mokhtar Bazaraa. Bazaraa, Executive Vice President of LogicBlox and former professor at Georgia Tech, was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award. It was good to make this connection as well.

If you get the chance to cover an event, read up on who you photograph. Sometimes you may need some “insider information” to help you with ice breakers and talk with people at the event.

I talked with Bishop Robert. C. Wright’s kids. We are both preacher kids, and I found out about their passions. The connection I used later with the Bishop was that our daughter and his were both Thespians.

My ice breaker with Mokhtar Bazaraa was some of our connections at Georgia Tech.

Ice breakers are ways you show your interest in the person.

Another tip is to arrive early and set your white balance for the lighting on the stage. Test your lighting in different rooms. It also makes the rooms your rooms after a while. You are there first, which will help you feel like the host rather than the guest. This can also help you to be more proactive with people.

Togo, West Africa [Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm, ISO 2800, ƒ/4, 1/100]

We live in a changing world, but we need to be reminded that the important things have not changed, and the important things will not change if we keep our priorities in proper order.

– S. Truett Cathy

How people approach photography these days has me very disappointed. There is way too much emphasis on gear and techniques. While you must master your equipment and learn strategies, they are not the purpose of photography.

The essential purpose of photography is communication. Few people take pictures solely to please themselves. Most of us take them because we want them to be seen by others. Pictures are a photographer’s means of expression, as a writer’s means are words.

Every time a new camera gear comes out, there is much talk. I was privileged to have started my career before the digital revolution.

When I would go to workshops before digital cameras were introduced, we worked with the same technology for more than one hundred years. While the cameras did evolve in this time and the film technology got better, the understanding of how to take a photo didn’t change.

Here are what I would like to think of are the four “Ps” to make your images better.

Problem Solving
Patience
Persistence
People

Problem Solving

A great photo connects with people. If you know what you want people to take away from looking at your picture, you have a good chance of making a great photo. When you don’t understand why you are pushing the shutter at that moment is one of the most significant indicators that the audience will not know either.

Problem-solving requires you to be very curious. I didn’t know at the time my dad first labeled me “Curious George” that this quality would be one of the most important skills one should have when being a professional photographer.

 Curious George is a sweet African monkey who cannot help but run into trouble. George’s friend, “The Man in the Yellow Hat,” tries very hard to care for George and always saves the day.

Curious George is intrigued and pursues his curiosity while not paying attention to what he is doing. While photographers shouldn’t get themselves into trouble, they should be curious enough to want to figure out things and ask why.

Patience

If you look through history you will notice that great things could not have happened often before that moment or after. There is often a season for a good idea.

Mathematicians often do not solve some of the most complex problems until other ideas can be mixed to create a new solution.

For example, Guglielmo Marconi is credited with inventing the radio, but his equipment was based on Tesla’s ideas. Without Tesla, there would not have been Marconi’s solution.

One of the best things one can do is to keep a journal or write down some of your ideas in a book. You may pitch these ideas to others and find they are not interested.

Then often, years later, you can go back to that book and pitch those same ideas, and now the season is right for them. You may have learned something in between that helps you do a better job of communicating your concept as well.

As we know the word, photography means to write with light. You must be patient if you want to take photos using natural light.

There have been many photographers who, for example, need a lot of time to do the research to know when to take a photograph. When Steve McCurry was working on the story for France’s BiCentennial for National Geographic, he spent more than two weeks going around and making notes about the light and places. He took photos more for research than for publication.

He then realized certain places would be great photos, but he needed to return at a different time of day.

One photographer was doing a story on a train and saw this gorgeous landscape with a railroad track that went through it across a bridge. The photographer decided to wait until the peak of the fall season to capture the moment.

I know that in photographing a person making a speech, I must anticipate the moments that capture those expressions that will do the best job of capturing the mood and message the speaker was making.

I have also photographed a few problematic people to capture due to their unusual blinking. So besides being patient to get them looking in the right direction with the proper facial expression and body language, I had to get it when their eyes weren’t closed or half closed.

Persistence

Closely related to problem-solving is being persistent. Musicians may study music for years and practice eight to ten hours a day so that they can take the stage and perform with such skill that it makes people want to pay to hear them.

You see, probably the most famous photographer of all time, Ansel Adams, was described as having the same qualities as Curious George. He was described as a hyperactive child. He transitioned from being a concert pianist to being a photographer.

He grew up going to Yellowstone and other parks. He spent years finding the right location for photographing some of his most famous photos. This also required him to return to the park for the right time of year, day, and weather to get the images we now see of him in museums, homes, and books of these iconic places.

While Ansel Adams drove upon the scene Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, he would later spend much time in the lab to get all the values he could get out of that negative to make the prints we see today.

When we think of the famous photojournalist Eugene Smith, we think of all the time he spent on stories like the Country Doctor. He followed the doctor for days to build an account. Smith was hired to produce 100 photographs of contemporary Pittsburgh for a book in honor of the city’s bicentennial. Two years after beginning the planned three-week assignment, the editors demanded the photos, and if it were not for the funding stops, Smith would have continued to pursue better pictures than he had.

People

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

This famous quote is a philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and perception. Let me rephrase this question for the photographer.

“If a photographer makes a photo and no one ever sees it, what is its purpose?”

Even if what you photograph isn’t a person but a thing, you are most likely making the photograph to share with other people. You want them to appreciate something you saw as much as you did.

Matthew 22:37–40: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

I believe photographers love our neighbors when we do our jobs at their best. We care for them in such a way that we want to share our experiences with them or take photos of them to share their essence with others. 

I see photography as serving the purpose of the glue that helps connect people.

Until someone invented the transporter device used on Star Trek to beam people around time and space, we only have photography/video that allows us to see people around the world and even into outer space.

Putting it all together

You need camera gear to capture photos. Learn to use the equipment the same way you use a car. While you may have never driven a stick shift, I remember a moment when I was no longer thinking about shifting gears but just doing it. This would be the same as the photographer who shoots today in manual mode.

Most likely, more photographers are using some automation on their cameras just like we use automatic transmissions. Some of us even have cars that help us drive ourselves today.

Most of us don’t care much about how the car works; we buy a model we like and then use it to take us places.

Use your camera like your car. Let the camera take you places. Spend your time like you do when you plan your trips. Focus on the destination and the people you will see. Make the trip with your camera about what is in front of it, not the camera itself. This is how you will take great photos.