Dr. Ken Day enjoys catching up with Knolan Benfield after some 33 years.

A couple of days ago Nicholas Spratlen sent me an email that he and his friend Dr. Ken Day wanted to come and see the missions photo exhibit at Roswell Presbyterian Church.  They both get my e.Newsletters and read my blog and were fascinated with the concept.

I was pretty excited because they didn’t know that my uncle Knolan Benfield was coming to town the same day for a visit.  We met them at the church and frankly Nicholas and I barely got a word in, Knolan and Ken were just enjoying catching up and swapping stories about what it was like working together for the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board during the 1960s and 70s. 

Dr. Ken Day and Knolan Benfield

“What impressed me the most about Ken was when he became the head of the communications division he went back to school and got his Phd in communications from the University of Georgia,” said Knolan. Today for the first time he told Ken about how he felt.  Ken was sort of paralyzed for a moment. No one had ever thanked him for doing that.

It reminded me how important it is to tell people the positive things they do for you.

The other day I wrote to my friend John Spink, a photographer for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.  I was just taken back at how consistent his work was in the paper and with all the cutbacks it is hard to work for a newspaper these days.  I just wrote and told him I was really impressed with his work.

John’s response was unbelievable.  He said the comments made a big difference for him that day.

The reason for the get together, the missions photo exhibit that I curated for Roswell Presbyterian Church.

Take the time today and pick up the phone, get on facebook, send an email or just send a hand written card to someone.  Thank them for what they did in your life.

I had to share these photos of Ken and Knolan, because you can see in their faces that they really were enjoying each other.  We all need that in our lives.

Three ingredients: 1) Ball, 2) Competition & 3) Peak Action

There are three things that I think make for a good sports photo:

1) The Ball
2) Competition
3) Peak Action

Not every sport has a ball, but for those that do I think it really helps to have the ball in the photo. Breaking this rule is possible to still have a good or even great photo.  But like all rules, when you break the rule you need to know why you did so.

Fan reaction to a play is a good away from the action shot where the ball will not exist for example.

If you have a great peak action photo and the ball it doesn’t look as good without the competition.  It looks often like a practice moment when the competition isn’t in the photo.

The competition in sports shows the adversity that literally you must overcome to be a winner on the field.

We have all three, but the competition isn’t up and close like the first photo.  This communicates the runner is outpacing the competition.

Just before they hike the ball in football you could have the ball and the competition in the photo, but lack the peak action.  It is a static moment.

Some of the things that can help communicate the peak action are expression and body language.  If you can see the expressions of the players you often can see the exertion of effort in the expression of the athlete. 

When they are at the peak of their jump like going over the defender you can see a peak moment.

Remember, in all of photography if you wait to see it and then click the shutter you will always miss it.  You need to learn to anticipate a moment.  This is most likely the one thing separating the great moments from an almost good moment. 

Here we have the ball and peak action, but there is really no immediate danger with the competition.  So there is less excitement than the photo above.

These three tips are on top of the things necessary in all photos:

1) Good exposure
2) in focus
3) Well composed
4) Good use of light

Mark Johnson talks with his photojournalism class at the University of Georgia.

Yesterday I talked to Mark Johnson’s Photojournalism class at The Grady College of Journalism and Multimedia on the campus of the University of Georgia.  I shared with them business practices and marketing concepts for the photographer.

If I had more time I would have told them to also about the importance of a personal project. If you ever hear a successful photojournalist speak about their work you will most likely hear about the “personal project.”

Today I want to talk about why I think this is a key to the success of the visual storyteller

I have hit the delete key way too much here to capture how important having an “inner drive” is to the success of your career. You have to be excited about a project that it consumes you enough that you are excited about thinking about the possibilities that it motivates you to act.

You need to have a passion about something so that when you pick up the camera to capture the subject emotions are driving your compositions and not a formula.

You need a support system, because going something all alone is difficult.

My faith community talks about the individual call and the corporate call. While a person may feel they are called to do something it is the corporate call of the community that must confirm the call.

By sharing your ideas with some close friends they can help encourage you and challenge you in the process.

Mark is more than just their teacher, he can serve as their coach or mentor, but they must make that decision

You really need someone who has been where you want to go or at least has taken on a personal project and succeeded.

Your coach will talk to you before you start. They should ask questions and help you to articulate why you have chosen an approach.

As you shoot your project you should be taking it to them to review. This is when you will discover with their help you have some holes in the coverage. You then will reshoot and show the results again to your coach.

Sometimes you will discover that the project you tried to cover just doesn’t work for one reason or another. This is when your coach might suggest taking on something else that might be better match for your heart and abilities to capture.

 
When you are done with your project you will know it because you have achieved your goal.

Sometimes your long-term goal may take years to achieve, but due to your efforts people have hired you to shoot some of their projects. Sometimes you may have a very successful career and still not achieve your goal for a long time.

Just the other night my wife Dorie helped me to see I had achieved some of my goal.

I had been asked to curate the art exhibit on missions for our church. It has been up now for a couple of weeks. Some people had come to tell me how much they loved the photos. “They are so real and we just love them.” Soon I had a couple folks talking to us. Then I overhead my wife telling a couple that this was not just Stanley’s profession this is the essence of what he is all about.

You see my goal was not to be published only, I have wanted to know that my photos were having impact on people’s lives. I hope that because of the art exhibit people feel called to give, go and/or pray for missions. If this happens then this personal project met the objective.

Students listen to Mark as he introduces me to the class

What is your personal project?

I assumed everyone knows about getting the lowest rates when traveling. On some recent trips I realized many are paying top dollar for things like hotel, rental cars and airfare.

By booking with Hotwire you still get to use your hotel chains reward points.  So I have joined Priority Rewards, Hilton Honors and Marriott Rewards.  Sometimes I must weigh the travel time between the hotel and the events or airport and the choice is not just based on the lowest price but how much time I will be spending to and from those locations.

Chick-fil-A Roswell Town Center

Jim Waddle called me a couple years ago and asked if I could get a good photo of his Chick-fil-A and I assured him I could. 

Just a couple years later, which is this year, Jim asked if we could update that photo. The first photo was so successful in his ad campaign that he wanted to update it since he had done some landscaping and wanted a recent photo.

Now for those of you who only have one Chick-fil-A in your town you might not see why this is important for Jim.  Here in Atlanta you can almost reach out and touch a Chick-fil-A anywhere you turn. 

Each restaurant does their own promotions in addition to working with the market.  The problem through the years is his promotions were not always driving people to his restaurant.  Jim likes working with the area market, but also wanted to have some special events. 

Not all the Chick-fil-A’s look alike so having a nice photo of his store helped his customers know which restaurant was doing a promotion or an event.

When you think about it many of the brick and mortar businesses in a town are remembered by their location and looks, so why not use a cool photo of the business to remind folks–it is called branding.

Poster designed to promote the display

Roswell Presbyterian Church is my home church.  A couple of years ago they started using a hall that we call “Main Street” for art shows of our members.

They asked me to coordinate a show on missions.  We photographed our mission partners around the world and this is the resulting show.

I am excited because we are putting up photos that met a few criteria.

Criteria for the show:

1. Photo had to be a large enough file size to make a 20″x30″ print.
2. Photos had to be well exposed.
3. Photos had to be in focus.
4. The photo had to be story telling.  We needed photos that help people understand what they are looking at and not just a photo of people all smiling and looking at the camera.
5. The photos needed to be action oriented rather than just a picture of an object.  So often people just take pictures of the buildings or the well they dug.  We wanted to see the people these projects were all about.

Laying out the prints along the hall for the display

The show will hang for 6 weeks.  During this time the ministers sermons will revolve around the them of “Windows to the Soul” that will be about each person’s individual calling into missions.

Our goal for the project is that everyone will come to see that God can use their gifts, whatever they may be, for missions.  Everyone is called to be missionaries. 

Picked three photos for one wall in a major area of the building

I hope we dispel some of the myths around missions:

1. All missionaries are preachers
2. You must go to some other continent like Africa
3. You must give up everything you own
4. Missions isn’t fun

The show isn’t about photography. It is using photography as the medium for the message.  I hope the images call some into full time ministry.  But if all it does is change one person’s life and helps them discover their call in missions then it was a success.