My former students from workshops and college classes often contact me about pricing and negotiating with clients.

This blog post is more about how to respond to a client or potential client when they make you feel like you were just insulted by them.

While you should figure out your Cost of Doing Business and know your bottom line to do a job, often, people will come back saying they only have a budget for less than you can accept.

My friend just called and was quoting on covering a business event for a day. She had figured this was probably an excellent place to network, so she cut her price in half and quoted that figure.

Always Quote Full Price

I told her she should always quote her average total price and then show a discount and why they are getting it. If you don’t do this, they think her price is half what she needs to charge. They tell their friends this is her rate.

Expect Negotiating

Negotiation theorists generally agree that there are two primary forms of negotiation:

• Distributive Negotiation: this is also referred to as positional or hard-bargaining negotiating. …
• Integrative Negotiation: this is the softer side of the two forms of negotiation, often referred to as win-win.

You need to figure out quickly which type of person you are dealing with when negotiating.

After my friend gave them her half-price quote, they returned with a low-ball response. “We only have $200 budgeted for the event.”

Respond Professionally

Often in the negotiating, one of the parties can feel insulted at the low or high dollar amount.

I recommend trying your best to stay with your pricing so that you are not going below your bottom line. Also, think of other things you can negotiate for that are of value. Maybe they can give you their contact list that you can use. Perhaps you can trade for free advertising.

Try and stay with something that sounds like, “I would love to cover your event for you.” Then you can outline the pricing and what value you bring to them.

You say I can do the work for you at this price. They say no, NOT YOU if they cannot afford you.

Know Your Numbers

I cannot stress enough that if you do not know your “Cost of doing business,” you will not be in business very long. You need to know the total amount you have from a job to pay your bills and also have money to invest in the growth of your business.

Great Video to Make My Point

This has been around for a while, and I have shared it in the past, but for those new to negotiating, this helps you see how often silly people can look for what they are asking. These are examples of Distributive Negotiation where they are trying to get something for below cost or even free.

The top photo is one of the laminated lists I used in 2002.

When I mentioned in a recent post about creating a Digital Workflow that you laminate, one person asked for that list.

I have been doing this so long that I no longer need the list, but I came across one of my laminated lists in my van to help me be sure I had everything before I left the house for a photo shoot.

This list had four sides of two laminated cards with a clip.

“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.”

John Ruskin

I was shooting many college basketball games then and had to arrive early to put up remotes and turn on my strobes.

I also did many headshots and a couple of shots for a missionary agency.

Each assignment was often so different that I would bring some gear I wouldn’t use for another project.

Today, I still take the time to pack before I leave for a trip or photo shoot the day before.

Here are some things I am doing that impact my Digital Workflow.

Day Before Photo Shoot Preparation

·  Charge all camera batteries and other batteries

·  Format all XQD Memory Cards for Cameras in Camera

·  Inspect all camera sensors with Sensor Loupe

·  Clean, if necessary, the sensor with a Cleaning Kit

·  Make a list of gear needed for the photoshoot

• Do I need a studio?
• Do I need a tripod?
• Am I doing a video?
• Do I need microphones?
• Do I need a constant light source for video?

·  Pack the necessary gear into cases

• If flying, then I will weigh all the cases
• Often, this is rearranging items to stay within the weight limit
• If overweight, I will arrive extra early at the airport to get the Media Baggage Rate. This applies to only working media and not a hobbyist.

Day of Shoot

• Check cameras one last time for battery power
• Pack Van and leave
• Meet contact and brief on expectations and any last-minute changes
• Scout location – Often with client
• Take gear out and assemble what is necessary
• Go to each site and do a custom white balance
• Pick all settings for the shoot
  • Sports Settings example for my Nikon D5
  • Standard
  • If Shooting with Studio Strobes, choose the settings on the camera
• When changing locations, pick the custom white balance [on Nikon, I can store six different WB settings and just like the one needed or do a new custom white balance]
• Go to spots I identified during scouting that would be ideal locations to shoot from just before the best time to be in those locations.
• If there is a long shot list, I will pull this out, ensure I am on track, and help remind me of the next shot or place for the photoshoot.
• Shoot the event
• Check-in with the client before leaving

Post Processing

1. Ingest to PhotoMechanic
2. IPTC information is filled out, and part of the ingesting process
3. Select the keepers
4. Delete all untagged images
5. Import into because I am shooting RAW
6. Using metadata, I select all the photos with the same lens
7. Select all with the same lens
8. Go to the Develop Module “D” shortcut.
9. On the far right, go to lens correction.
10. Go back to the Library, pick another lens, and do the same until all photos have been lens-corrected
11. Click on the profile and enable the profile for Adobe Color, or select another more appropriate profile by browsing in the menu.
12. Tip for choosing multiple images shot in the same scene and making corrections all at once
13. Go to settings and then tell it to Match Exposure on all those selected
14. ⌘D unselect
15. Go through them one by one and check that they are correct. Repeat this step for different scenes.
16. Correct for blown-out highlights
17. Pull in blacks if necessary
18. I often use the Dehaze and Texture sliders.
19. For sharpening, I use this technique
20. Export all images to sRGB JPEGs Quality 80
21. Open PhotoMechanic
22. Upload to my PhotoShelter account for the client

I love the updated Adobe Lightroom. I am using three of the controls that, if used correctly, can help out some photos that, in the past, without these controls, would have been so-so photos.

I love the Texture, Clarity, and Dehaze sliders. I cannot recommend them enough.

I hold the Option key on the Mac for sharpening while sliding the Masking control. The masking is around 70 for my older cameras, 12 megapixels or less. Eighty is for my Nikon D5, and 90 is for the higher resolution cameras. Once I see the white edges, I slide the sharpening amount to 150.

When your quality isn’t up to standards, it is often because you skipped a step in your Digital Workflow.

“The highest cost of poor quality is when your customer buys it from someone else because they didn’t like yours.”

W. Edwards Deming

Pam Goldsmith is an emeritus winner of the ‘Most Valuable Player’ award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Her viola playing has been heard on countless records, films, and television shows. 
[NIKON D4, 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 5600, 1/125, ƒ/4.5, (35mm = 28)]

“If you just focus on getting better, and not being the best, you have such a good time.”

James Acaster

The other day I was reminded I am working with many people at the top of the field, and when I work with those starting, I have to be patient. This post is about how to become a better you by reflecting on how I got to where I am today.

I have been so blessed to know some of the world’s best in a few fields. One of those is my sister-in-law Pam Goldsmith. I have written about her before.

She plays in the studio musicians group that plays for many of the movies, TV, records, and other places you would be surprised about. She sits in the first chair most of the time. When the studio musicians show up to play the music for a movie that has never been played, they don’t practice it–they play it for the first time, and 95% of the time, that was the last time they played it for the final recorded version you see in the movie. The 5% of the time, they do it again, it wasn’t due to their execution, but the composer realized during the recording that they made a mistake, and after a rewrite, they re-recorded it.

It takes a long time to get to that point of expertise from just learning to play the instrument.

In 1984 during my Spring Break, I was hired by Robert Reed at the Hickory Daily Record and would start working after graduating that May. While driving from Delaware to Hickory, North Carolina, I stopped by the International Mission Board to meet Don Rutledge.

My uncle, Knolan Benfield, had worked with Don for more than nine years when they were on staff for the North American Mission Board in Atlanta, Georgia.

In the 1950s, Don was shooting stories for all the top magazines. He would go on to work with and help lift the quality of photography done by the mission magazines to compete with LIFE, Look, and National Geographic Magazine.

Pam Goldsmith grew up in California near all the great musicians and became one due to being surrounded by great viola players. In some ways, I was growing up in an environment of great photographers and storytellers.

I remember my uncle Knolan Benfield talking to me about getting to the top. You go and talk to the people at the top. He told me about many of the experiences where he noticed famous photographers at conferences standing by themselves because people feared them. He just walked up and talked to them and got to know them.

Today I know that very few at the very top of the profession can help others. These are the ones that can teach and not just do. Don Rutledge happened to be one of those few.

While Don taught me a lot about composition, body language, and learning to see the light, Knolan taught me how to create using lights.

In 1993 I started to work at Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech has been named one of the most prestigious schools in the world. My role there was storytelling on research, education, athletics, and alumni for distribution through campus publications and outside media. I worked there until 2002, and during this time, I perfected lighting.

In 2008 Greg Thompson, Director of Corporate Communications for Chick-fil-A, asked me to come and help him build his team. Chick-fil-A is the third largest American fast food restaurant chain and the largest whose specialty is chicken sandwiches.

Greg was building an incredible team. He recruited Ken Willis, who had run the largest PR agencies in Atlanta. He had just sold one of them and started a new agency KWI.

Greg was scooping up talent from Coke and Porter Novelli and recruiting some of the best students to start their careers with Chick-fil-A.

Again I was surrounded by some of the best in the storytelling profession.

In 2018 Mark Johnson, Senior Lecturer, Journalism at Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication for the University of Georgia, asked me to come and teach for the year Intro to Photojournalism to four different classes while they looked for a full-time professor with a Ph.D.

I quickly learned that I had worked my entire career with people at the top of their game. Everyone I worked with was always doing whatever it took to tell the story in the most effective way possible.

Many of these students were not desiring to be visual storytellers. Many took journalism as an undergrad degree before going to another profession like law.

In 2006 I got a call from Dennis Fahringer asking me to come to Kona, Hawaii, to teach his students lighting. He initially requested Joanna Pinneo, photographer for National Geographic Magazine, who told him to contact me. Joanna and I both worked with Don Rutledge.

Dennis’ students in YWAM had a passion for God. Most taking the class explored if photography was one of the ways they could serve the church or learn how to work their faith into running a photography business.

Again I was asked to dial back from shooting at the highest level in my profession to talking to newbies about literally “Step One” in photography.

I am often hiring photographers to help me with projects at Chick-fil-A. Two that I love to hire over and over are Michael Schwarz and Robin Rayne.

I have hired so many through the years, but only a few consistently meet the customer’s demands. When I hire either of them to do work, I know that I am sending to the customer storytellers who are not just as good as me but better than me. This is how I see them.

Be the best version of yourself!

• Show Up! – It is incredible how many people don’t show up
• Start With Baby Steps – you can’t skip the line. You have to start at the beginning
• Stop Looking For Shortcut – “Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity” While it may look like a shortcut, it is often years of working hard, and you get a lucky break. If you are not prepared, then you may have just lost your one chance.
• Accept Help From Others – Most of those at the top didn’t get along. Don’t be prideful; take the help.
• Celebrate Small Accomplishments – Realize that learning at the level you are at at the moment is just as important as the finish line. Break down the “Big Goals” into bite-size pieces.
• Help Others – Pay it forward. Don’t be about taking. Be known for giving.

“Become the BEST VERSION of Yourself!” | Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) | Top 10 Rules

Harpist plays for the VIP Reception at Marriott Marquis in Atlanta during the Islamic Speakers Bureau’s “Celebrating Women of Influence ISB Gala.”
[NIKON D5, 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 4000, 1/200, ƒ/3.2, (35mm = 14)]

On October 12th, I was covering the Islamic Speakers Bureau’s “Celebrating Women of Influence ISB Gala” at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta, Georgia.

If you ever have to cover an event like this, I recommend a few things.

Two or More Cameras

Anytime you shoot professionally, you need a backup camera. This is in case one stops working for any reason at all. I tend to put the Nikon 28-300mm on one camera and the Nikon 14-24mm on the other.

I can get everything I need with this range of glass.

For this event, I had a third camera on a tripod with the Sigma 120-300mm & 2X converter so that I could shoot more straight into people’s faces from across the room rather than everything shooting up at them when I was closer.

I had to be down front sometimes and shoot up at the speakers on the podium, as you see here.

After introducing a speaker to an award winner, I snapped a photo of them with some of the board members.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I went on stage before the event started and did a custom white balance with my Nikon Cameras. On the Nikon Z6 & Nikon D5, you can store up to 6 different presets. This way, you can do a custom white balance for the stage and then go to another room with a different setting and set it on an additional Preset.

Have a Flash

Now with the stage having two sets of lights at 45º to the location, it was even lighting. However, walking around in the Atrium of the Marriott Marquis, the light needed help with flash.

Laura Espeut, the second shooter, got this photo of me with the Nikon Z6 with a 28-300mm and the Godox V860ii on the camera and the MagMod Magshpere on the hot-shoe.

Save your Back

To carry two cameras, I use the HoldFast Gear Money Maker Two-Camera Harness with Silver Hardware (English Bridle, Chestnut)

Quality Photography Demands A Digital Workflow

The bottom line is you need a workflow. You prepare days ahead, from talking with the client to managing expectations to getting a shot list. You then must prepare before the event by charging batteries and checking the sensor of each camera for dust.

I recommend you create a workflow list of things you need to do for every photo shoot. Be sure that the order you do things is in the correct order. Please print it out and even laminate that list and keep it with you in your camera bag.

In my last blog post, I showed you some of the white balance when done without a custom white balance and then doing one.

I hope you are hearing from me today that if the quality isn’t up to the standards you want to represent what you can do for clients, the answer is most likely in your workflow. It is something you skipped or modified from what is the ideal way to shoot the assignment.

While I try to be consistent and do a custom white balance all the time, I confess I sometimes get sloppy and choose to try and fix it in Lightroom.

Here is a photo I shot with my Nikon Z6 shooting with Auto White Balance.

When the camera is seeing this scene it is factoring in the projection screen behind the speaker which was a different color temperature than the speaker.

I realized all the photos on the stage were off, so I selected all of them and did a color balance based on my calibrated monitor. Here is the result.

I had used the eye dropper on a microphone. Well, it is close but not perfect.

Then the next day I got there early and asked the lighting guy to turn the lights on so I could go on the stage and get a custom white balance using the ExpoDisc. Here is another blog post on using the ExpoDisc.

This is shot with the custom white balance. Big difference in nailing the skin tone.

Moral of the Story: Get A Custom White Balance

I recommend using the ExpoDisc. You can use it to help you 1) White Balance, 2) Set Exposure & 3) Dust Mapping. Here are the instructions for doing all this if you didn’t already know how.

[Cristina Baccay Holdsworth, Eleanor Baccay Reece, & Blair D. Sullivan]

Back when I was on staff at Georgia Tech [1993 – 2001] Facebook had not been created and the iPhone didn’t exist. I was still shooting film.

While Match.com was founded in 1995 students were still doing silly things at Georgia Tech to get dates in 2001.

I was shooting with ISO 100 most of the time. This meant I was lighting almost everything inside.

The cool thing is we did have PhotoShop. It was released February 19, 1990. This let me scan all the images we were making and put Metadata with each photo. So most of the photos we would put some caption information on each photo.

So often when we go back to photos the biggest problem is having some context around the photo.

This week I stumbled over a folder of images that I created when I left Georgia Tech to start freelancing in April 2002.

Seeing the family photos during this time of starting my new season as a full-time freelancer has put into perspective how long I have now been freelancing full-time.

Today it is easier than ever to just take a moment when you are in Lightroom, PhotoShop or Bridge to add just a few words about the photo that will help give context.

Without some captions generations in the future will not know any of the significance or who people are in the photos that you have been taking.

Don’t Rely on Social Media to Store Your Photos

My Samsung Galaxy S10 takes the wide shots at 3456 x 4608 pixels. When I upload this to Facebook it will cut that size to 1500 x 2000 pixels. This is basically cutting the quality in half.

For social media that is fine, but if later you want a large wall print now you are limited greatly to the size you can print.

There are many online services that you can use with your phone to store all your images at high resolution. Google Photos, Amazon Photos and many others can do a great job of storing images for you.

Adding Text with Google Photos

The process of adding a custom description to a single photo is the same whether you’re on the Google Photos app or website:

1. Tap or click in to view a single photo, then select the information button (a small “i” icon) to view more details on the photo.
2. You’ll see things like the capture date, file name, camera model and location — select “Add a description” to add more to it.
3. There doesn’t seem to be a character limit (or if there is one it’s quite large), so go ahead and add in any extra information you think is relevant to the photo. Maybe a little back story, what’s going on in the picture or perhaps some other bit of information that can’t be picked up from the plain EXIF data of the photo.

The extra details should help if you’re searching for pictures in the future on Google Photos, but at least right now you’ll have those details synced up to that photo for your own benefit when you view it manually. Go forth and add all of the extra info your pictures deserve!

I came across a folder of images from when I was on staff at Georgia Tech. Just take a look at some of these memories. Can you find pictures on your computer from years ago?

In the past 20 years, technology has improved. Here is a scan I did 18 years ago:

Then today using the latest Adobe PhotoShop software I was able to get this with just minor editing:

The Raw Camera Filter has some cool features.

The best feature for scans is the Dehaze slider.

When you slide it to the right, you get less haze, which comes from a backlight that scans the film transparency.

The other feature is all the tools at the top of the Camera Raw. I use the Detail tool [two triangles] to adjust for noise and sharpening.

By the way, the Develop Module of Lightroom is the same as the Camera RAW filter of PhotoShop.

Hope this tip helps you if you have old transparency photos that you scanned and look washed out.

Here some photos I fixed just today

In 1996 I photographed Dr. Sam Shelton, the guy who designed the Olympic Torch.

Then in 2002, Dr. Sam Shelton designed the Winter Olympic Torch. These are some of the photos from then that were used to promote Georgia Tech’s involvement in the Olympics.

While the cameras are better today, with enough light, the past cameras also did a great job.

I have been going through old photos from 17 years ago during my last staff job before going full-time freelance in 2002.

I worked at Georgia Tech as their only staff photographer, which I have done since 1993. I took lots of photos of Buzz, the mascot during those years.

Tech Square was just being built.

I was always in the research labs capturing the latest technology.

Sometimes those researchers were working on the coast of Georgia.

Georgia Tech beat The Citadel back then. This year they lost to them.

I was often capturing lasers and the researchers working on projects.

Be sure you store your images on hard drives. I recommend using SSD and having your pictures in 3 places.