The student is getting face paint during the Jell-O Wars at Anderson University.

Too many people join associations as if buying tickets to a sporting event. They want to sit in their comfortable seats and watch others perform. When considering joining an organization, one of the first questions most people ask is, “What do I get for my membership?” That’s a valid question, and most organizations list the benefits their members will receive.

Ask Not What an Organization Can Do for You

But sometimes, the more important question is what you can give. I am reminded of the famous words of John F. Kennedy:

“And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what we can do for the freedom of man.”

Kennedy helped forge the idea of service by creating the Peace Corps; he believed the country’s success depended on people becoming involved. Focusing on service rather than entitlement can be a key to our professional success and personal fulfillment.

When you join a group, receiving the newsletter and being listed on the membership rolls will have little impact on your success. Unless you’re willing to commit yourself, you’d be better off saving the dues money and not wasting your time — or the groups.

The leading figures in most industries are consistently those who volunteer in their professional organizations. They network with others, they help organize competitions and awards for the industry, and they mentor others in their industry.

Today there are groups whose sole purpose is to teach their members how to be successful. Although these groups may teach you how to be a better networker, if the only reason you join is to promote your success, you will probably fail.

Go Where Your Passion Leads You

Success through an organization starts with matching your passions with volunteering. You can become involved in a community theater, entertain others and become known in your neighborhood. Through your involvement, people will get to know you, and you will get to know others. You can join the community of faith through a local congregation or play a sport in a local league … if you follow your passion, you’ll naturally want to become more involved.

You know you’re plugged into a group when others depend on you. People will not only want you around because of what you are giving to the organization but will come to value your friendship. They get to know you and appreciate your passion.

Looking for leaders not followers

Working with universities, I have become good friends with some people overseeing the recruiting. At Georgia Tech, they changed how they recruit. One of the changes had to do with the list of organizations a person was involved in; they now only want you to list your top five.

Why only five? They are recruiting the leaders of tomorrow, and they are looking for leaders — not just members. An Eagle Scout is more than just a Boy Scout.

Two groups I have worked with take this concept of involvement through service way beyond most other groups. As a result, they transform those in these organizations and profoundly affect those around them. These organizations are Youth With a Mission and Chick-fil-A.

Truett S. Cathy

The founder of Chick-fil-A, Truett Cathy, can be seen today picking up the trash around a store before he goes in. All of his managers are trained to do every job regularly. They can be seen cleaning the bathrooms. When a Chick-fil-A event is over, everyone in the organization volunteers to help clean up.

When students enroll at the University of Nations, part of Youth With a Mission, they are all expected to work while attending school. They have found that some people are like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They talk a good game and sound caring and warm, but a different person emerges on the job. The Mr. Hyde side might believe they are better than others; they might not want to do specific jobs they think are beneath them.

Choose Wisely

We can learn a lot about ourselves by volunteering. It can even change who we are. Volunteering helps smooth out those rough edges we all have.

Accountability has influenced most organizations today. People don’t want to waste their time or money. They want to make a lasting difference.

Habitat for Humanity changes not only those who receive the homes; those doing the building is changed as well. The first family to receive a Habitat home was so transformed that each of the children went to college and became successful. Habitat has provided volunteers with the opportunity to enrich their lives while making a real difference in their communities.

The two wealthiest men in the world, Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates, have joined together to give money back to society. Their foundation’s activities focus on world health — fighting diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis — and improving U.S. libraries and high schools.

In his book Giving, Bill Clinton tells stories of people who give. These remarkable stories suggest that giving takes many forms and emphasize that offerings of time, skills, objects, and ideas can be just as critical as monetary contributions.

We have a choice. We can watch the game of life or be one of the leading players. Choose wisely; your success — and fulfillment — may depend on it.

Stanley usually provides a DVD-R immediately following your event. The ID information is printed directly on the inkjet-writable DVD-R, which is more archival than a paper label. The data includes the name and date of your event plus Stanley’s contact information, making it easy to locate images later.

Stanley keeps a duplicate DVD-R on file as an off-premises backup for you. Everyone should make their backup as well.

Each image is a high-resolution JPEG. Usage rights of the photos are negotiated before the assignment.

For most editorial assignments, photo identification is embedded with the image. This is helpful when writing cut-lines for your newsletter or matching the photo with the person in a story.

One of Stanley’s clients has 500 plus new portraits made every year. Many of the faces are new. The office staff uses the embedded identification to match the portraits to bios. This helps those who have not met the new people to match the person with the name.

Below is an example of this when you use Photoshop to view the images. Go to the menu option Menu>File Info to pull down the box.

The above example should interest you if you have many photographs taken each year and have had trouble locating a particular photo. This ID information is recognizable by most image archiving software such as Cumulus. The file information box of Photoshop is known as IPTC for short.

As you can see, the information is the same. Since Stanley has done this work for you, after setting up the software like MediaDex to recognize IPTC, you only need to drag the folder from the DVD-R, which Stanley provided to you, into the database software and let it ingest the images. You do not need to add any more information. The event’s name is searchable; you can find people by searching the caption for words.

You can also use services online like PhotoCore. This provides a live, searchable database for you to use. Your photographers can upload from anywhere worldwide, and you can determine access by creating accounts for photographers, designers, and clients. Look at some of Stanley’s examples here.

With this service provided by Stanley, you can find a photo within seconds. If you save all the images on a server, the artist only needs to click to place the picture into their design. It only takes a second.

You can use the information printed on the DVD-R to locate a project, place the DVD-R on the computer, and drag the photo from the Database straight into your document.

Use the information printed on the DVD-R to locate a project, place the DVD-R on the computer and drag the photo from the Database straight into your document.

Look on the DVD-R to locate a project, place the DVD-R on the computer and drag the photo from the Database straight into your document.

To locate a project, place the DVD-R on the computer and just drag the photo from the Database straight into your document.

Today we must be good stewards of our budget and resources. Since Stanley has completed most of the data entry for you, he has saved you hours of work that translates into savings.

There is more than meets the eye in Stanley’s photos. He has provided you with the images you need and increase their value because of the wealth of information he has provided about those images.

The ease of use, the ability to quickly locate a single photo in your collection, and the in-depth information about that photo all located together make a photo shoot by Stanley more valuable.

Yes, Stanley indeed does work to make your job easier.

 

Nikon D3S, ISO 6400, f/5.6, 1/2000, 28-300mm also used SU-800 Speedlight Commander to fire SB900 Speedlight off camera.  The RadioPopper PX System is used to be sure the signal for flashes works outside.

We have all seen photographs with too much “stuff” in them. Because the photographer does not attempt to select one subject, the image fails to communicate. It’s the visual equivalent of a run-on sentence.

A close-up of detail frequently reveals more of the subject than a picture of the whole issue. So many photographers want to shoot general views because they believe they offer “good composition” or capture beautiful light. The detailed photograph can have more impact and communicate more because the photographer is forced to be interpretive with the detail. The isolated part can tell more, be more emphatic, and be more quickly appreciated and understood. It tells the story in a compressed, sometimes dramatic, fashion by scaling down to point out a specific idea to the most significant effect.

In approaching a subject, decide how much to include in the camera’s viewfinder. Force yourself to look around the subject and at each of the corners and everything within the viewfinder’s frame. If anything detracts from the theme, move in closer to eliminate it; if there is not enough to tell the story, drive back to include more. The key to this process is to know what you want; the details will fall naturally into place, and “composition” is achieved.

I have found the following exercise effective with my students at Reinhardt College. First, shoot a large scene, then close in on it and cut it in half. Close in repeatedly until you finally isolate the most crucial subject and thus make a statement about the main thing in the scene. In this way, you learn that much of what you see in a picture may not be that important — and how to select the part or parts that are most meaningful.

Great photographers know that composition is a matter of feeling rather than of rules learned by rote. You will develop this feeling as you gain experience, but you will never really “know it all” because you will emphasize different things as you learn more about life. Composition, ultimately, is just another way of looking at life.

Finding Forrester is one of my favorite films. In the movie, William Forrester, played by Sean Connery, is a reclusive Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who never gave the world a second novel. Forrester befriends a 16-year-old inner-city basketball player named Jamal. Jamal, an aspiring writer, visits Forrester’s apartment to seek the author’s wisdom. In one scene, Forrester and Jamal have a lively discussion about writing rules, such as “You shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘and.'” They talk about how breaking the rules can create a significant impact. If overdone, however, it also can have a devastating effect.

This is so true in photography. Photographers must study and know the rules of good visual composition like writers study and learn the rules of good writing composition. Once you understand the rules, your ability to break them helps you have a better impact on your photos.

Breaking the rules can create visual surprises. Tom Kennedy was the director of photography for National Geographic magazine when I showed him my portfolio many moons ago. While my work was professional and of excellent quality at the time, Kennedy commented that he wanted more surprises.

Kennedy had seen just about everything in his role at National Geographic. When Kennedy said he wanted to see more surprises, he wanted — for example — to see shots that weren’t taken from my average standing or sitting height. One of the things his critique had me doing right away was looking for the extreme. I started shooting with my camera on the ground and finding ways to get up high. I also started to shoot extreme close-ups, another change in what I’d been doing.

There comes the point in your photographic journey where you begin to find your voice. In the movie, Forrester had Jamal use a typewriter to copy Forrester’s work simply. The author started doing this after he set down a typewriter in front of Jamal, and the pupil just sat there waiting for something to come into his head. When Forrester saw Jamal wasn’t typing, he asked Jamal, “What are you doing?”

“I am thinking,” said Jamal.

“No thinking,” Forrester replied. “That comes later.”

Forrester gave him some of his work to copy to get the juices flowing. Through punching the keys and going through the actions, Jamal loosened up and slowly, after copying the job, started to write his work.

Photographers do the same thing. We copy other people’s work to learn how they did it and then add the underlying technology to our long-term memory to use later. Most arts require mastering specific skills before you can create your original works. This typically takes about five years. You can see this as musicians learn to play an instrument like a piano.

After copying the concepts of other photographers, you soon learn that your work is no better or worse than many others. This is when you realize that to stand out from others, you must do something unique — your surprise.

Forrester had a great quote that made me think; he asked, “Why is it the words we write for ourselves are always so much better than the words we write for others?” As photographers, we don’t always receive assignments that challenge us; there’s only so much you can do with a check presentation, for example. Most of the great photographers I know have a secret to their work — personal projects that sustain their creative juices.

The key to surprising others is first to surprise yourself — to take risks and look through your camera differently, not being afraid to break the rules. Stretch your way of looking and see if there is a better perspective than you usually take when taking photos. Who knows what you might discover?

Fuji X-E2, 18-55mm, ISO 6400, ƒ/2.8, 1/50 [What happens when I leave my camera sitting around]

Many in today’s iGeneration have had a childhood of T-ball, soccer, and dance classes expect a trophy if they just participated. I assume most people know there is more to life than showing up on time – but you’d be surprised how often meeting minimum standards will put you ahead of the competition.

I just handed in the grades for a class I taught in photojournalism at Reinhardt College. Real-world projects are what I assigned to the students. They had three assignments: an environmental portrait, covering an event, and a photo story.

I ask the students to turn in their assignments as if submitting them to an editor. First, they needed a cover letter to tell me about their proposal. Next, they required a folder with their selects and another with all the images they shot. The selects needed to have a caption embedded in the IPTC fields. Most editors enjoy being able to send a photo to the designer who already has the caption in the picture.

Some students forgot the captions; some forgot the cover letter, and some were late handing them in. So, while most had everything done correctly, we still had somewhere the captions lacked the essential five Ws.

I continue to hear horror stories from clients about photographers who didn’t meet their minimum expectations. I even know photographers who did the work and never handed in an invoice! It is incredible how excitement will be received by ensuring all the elements are done for a project and turning them in on time (or early!).

One of my favorite creative directors is Tony Messano. He gives sage advice. I can understand why he was judging advertising work all over the world.

Tony expects a photographer to shoot the assignment the way Tony conceives it – but his favorite photographers not only give him what he wants; they go beyond his concept and shoot it their way. Often, they will shoot it just as he says and push the idea further with lighting composition or another element. They bring something extra to the table.

If you are meeting the expectations of your clients, you are doing better than most others in the industry. But, to rise to the top, go a little beyond the expectations.

Don’t be satisfied with the trophy everyone gets for just showing up. Instead, be the person singled out for going beyond the call of duty. Never stop looking for a unique approach or something different. The stretching will keep you youthful and agile in today’s ever-changing marketplace.

Figure 1

My wife Dorie was standing in line at a local drugstore and overheard a customer complain about his photos. He asked, “Why is their head chopped?” The clerk told him the photo technician was off but could help him tomorrow.

As I walked up to Dorie, she told the customer that I was a professional photographer and could probably help. Many years ago, I managed a one-hour photo lab in Texas, where customers were asking this same question almost daily.

Figure 2 – This is an 8×10 crop of the Figure 1 photograph

Missing heads (and other disappearing objects) are standard when making prints. The reason? Digital cameras create pictures of a particular shape and a height-to-width ratio. When we order prints, say a 4 x 6 or an 8 x 10, the body or ratio is different for each size image.

Unfortunately, the machine that prints the pictures doesn’t know how to crop the images in the best way because it’s a machine — so heads go missing from the edges of our photographs. To overcome this problem, photographers need to understand that parts of our photos will be cropped off and allow for this when we make the picture.

An aspect ratio is the relationship of an image’s width to height. For example, Digital cameras produce files with an aspect ratio of 4:3 or 2:3 in most cases. But standard print sizes have different aspect ratios. For example, a 4 x 6 print has an aspect ratio of 3:2; an 8 x 10 has an aspect ratio of 5:4.

To avoid having people arbitrarily clipped by your software or photo printing service, you should crop the photo to the correct aspect ratio, the way you want it to look, before printing. Most of the newer software will have preset aspect ratios for standard photo print sizes in the crop tool.

In Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, for example, you can enter the height and width in the options bar before making a crop selection to crop to a specific aspect ratio — but avoid putting a number in the resolution field if you don’t want the image re-sampled when you cut it.

If you don’t have Photoshop, try using a lab such as PPRPix. Labs of this nature have the software you use through your Web browser to crop before you order your prints. This software has a crop-and-preview tool. It allows you to see crops instantly of all photo sizes. Since Photoshop costs more than $600, this free tool can be a great option, particularly for photographers just starting.

When the camera merged with the computer to give us digital photography, the skills to be a successful photographer changed dramatically. Before digital photography, professional photographers only had to know how to use a camera.

Almost everyone working before the computer became commonplace has experienced this phenomenon. After that, jobs were integrating computers into many people’s jobs was commonplace. As a result, everyone has had to learn how to do word processing and e-mailing the computer to maximize their efficiency for work, depending on their comfort level with computers.

Transitions

Some didn’t handle this transition well. Many employees always had to ask the office’s resident “computer guy” to help them with everything e-mail merging, printing envelopes, attaching documents to e-mails, and so on. Because they didn’t learn, they became less valuable employees, while the computer guy became more valuable.

Recessions

In 1990, the publication industry took a big hit. I lost my job due to the recession. My friends also lost their jobs since newspapers were dropping like flies; many two-newspaper towns lost one of their publications.

Fortunately for me, I had computer skills to fall back on. These skills helped me to sell computer systems to corporations in Long Island for Tandy Corporation. I used my knowledge to help design client networks and create mass-marketing databases. I enjoyed the photography forums on CompuServe long before 1993. It was 1995 when the World Wide Web took off. I took a class at Georgia Tech on designing Web sites and created my Website in 1995.

Scanning

In the early 90s, I scanned transparencies and film to digitize photos for publication. Once the digital camera surpassed the quality of this process, it was easy for me to make the transition. Today I speak to my peers at conferences and workshops as an expert on digital photography and how to use the computer to run their businesses.

Since moving from a staff position to a full-time freelancer, I have watched my business average 20 percent annual growth. Many friends have been losing their businesses and staff jobs during this time. I’ve realized that the most significant single factor in my success is the knowledge of computers as it relates to photography. Those who have failed have generally not kept up with technical developments.

The successful photographer today is the integrated photographer. In technology, “integrated” refers to two or more components merging into a single system. The integrated photographer is a professional who has combined mastery of the camera with computer skills.