Caption: Ron Sherman talks about his work on display at the Roswell Arts Center on Friday, September 23, 2022. [NIKON Z 9, 35mm f/1.4G, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 1000, 1/200, ƒ/1.4, (35mm = 35)]

Today I went to hear photojournalist Ron Sherman share some of his 60+ career highlights at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center.

For those who are new to photography and specifically commercial photography, I am writing this to help you understand there is not a well-worn path for newbies to follow those who went before.

Ron is about eighty, so his career started twenty-some years before I entered the profession. Ron’s dream job early on was to be on staff as a photographer for Life Magazine. Unfortunately, Life Magazine went under in 1972, just about when Ron’s portfolio was strong enough to be published.

My dream job was to work for The Commission Magazine, which I did get to do in 1985. However, a few years later, I was laid off due to funding.

Both Ron and I had watched the industry change. Unfortunately, while my 40+ years overlap with Ron’s because of timing, we didn’t get the same opportunities due to changes.

Most of Ron’s career was in the film. Digital capture didn’t take hold of the industry until around 2000. Of course, there were digital cameras earlier, but the quality hadn’t surpassed film, in my opinion, until about 2002 at the earliest.

Ron did well with owning the copyright to his images and selling them through agencies for large sums of money compared to today’s rates. $300 was the lower end of photography stock sales when the film was the standard. Today sales start below $2.

Film cameras required photographers to know what they were doing because it took more than an hour if you process your film to see what you had taken. In addition, the ability to reshoot something because your settings were wrong wasn’t possible with film. Digital changed that in a significant way.

Digital exploded the number of photographers. Finally, they could take a photo and see the results instantaneously. Make a mistake with focus, exposure, or color balance; you can correct your settings and reshoot a photo in seconds. Digital capture was a game changer for the industry.

Most large businesses hire advertising and public relations agencies to hire photographers for commercial work. Photographers created portfolios and showed them to the agencies for work.

Art directors with great eyes didn’t always have the skills to shoot film and make it do what they needed. With digital capture, that changed. As a result, many of those agencies started shooting their photography rather than hiring photographers.

Today it is no longer just about digital capture with professional cameras; smartphones have cameras capable of rendering results good enough for advertising campaigns.

So today, the one thing that isn’t a differentiator for commercial photography is the camera and how to use it.

Today I see these as the differentials for helping photographers stand out and get work.

1. Understanding Light – This means the ability to use natural light by moving around until you get the best possible light on the subject.
2. Creating Light – Photographers need to know how to start light from scratch in a dark room to work with available light and add lights to make subjects look even better.
3. Subject Expertise – Without understanding a subject, you will struggle to take intense photos in communicating this to an audience without someone else directing you. The more you know, the less the client does less directing and looks to you, the photographer, to help them get strong images.
4. People Skills – You must be able to listen to your clients and communicate to build trust with everyone involved in a project. Building trust with clients requires listening, asking the questions that lead to better photos, and knowing how to get the client’s approval before shooting.
5. Business Skills – You must know what it costs to run your business. How to charge the correct prices to pay your bills, put money back into your business, and market your business to prospective clients.

Today I believe that while photographers still need to do what Ron Sherman was doing early in his career in the 1960s by having a solid portfolio, good work ethic, good people skills, and business acumen, in 2022, there are just way more photographers competing for jobs than in years past.

A client’s customer experience with a photographer is more important than ever. So many people are always knocking on their doors, and if you are not easy to work with, they have an easy replacement at their door.

I just played around today with photos from November 2011 when my son was doing airborne jumps at Fort Benning in Georgia.

One of my favorite tools is AI Masking. Selecting a subject and then inverting it is one thing I love doing.

I could improve the people, select everything around them, and color correct or more.

The time to do this in the past would have taken at least 15 to 30 minutes just to create a mask as good as AI is doing here in Lightroom. Before AI was in Lightroom, attempting this manipulation would have you in PhotoShop.

Now, this was all done with my older Nikon D3S. With my newest Nikon Z9, the resolution will only make this even better.

The Airborne Jumpers are so tricky to balance to the sky. So I chose to semi-silhouette them for these photos.

I know many people complain about the monthly plan that Adobe products have you paying, but they are always coming out with better editing tools. I am sure this is due to having the ongoing funds to pay people to innovate.

Take Away From Reprocessing Images

Here is a list of things I think will make you shoot differently today.

• Shoot RAW – The most information that, even today, you can adjust using software like Adobe Lightroom Classic
• Shoot Highest Resolution – Often, photographers dumb down the file size because they don’t need it for the present moment. This limits you in the future of things like cropping differently than you did at the time you shot the photo.
• Good Archive – Today, I recommend SSD for storage and redundancy. Most IT people say to have A, B, & C copies.
• Bracket – While not always possible, it is excellent if you do more options later. Very important with Real Estate and landscapes.

You can only maximize what you use in the future. While today we have some AI software like Topaz Labs that will help with noise, sharpening, and enlarging, it can only do a percentage of improvement, so larger files with more dynamic range will yield better results.

If you have older photos from years ago, why not open them in Lightroom and see what the new tools can help you do to make your more senior images look even better today?

I am writing this for those who will find solace in that someone else struggles with life each day, as well as you. Spoiler alert I don’t have a solution, but just to let you know, we are on this journey, not alone.

If you are breathing, you most likely have choices to make in dealing with life.

One of the most important things I have learned through the years is that we are not entirely in control of our lives.

In my life, there have been challenges related to health, cars, houses, and jobs, to name a few areas of conflict I have experienced. The one thing that my brain has done in analyzing these conflicts has been to know if I caused them in any way. Sometimes, if I had made another choice, it would have been a different outcome.

I have been in a few car wrecks where I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In addition, I have had medical issues like getting the flu that was not preventable.  

Maybe you can relate to having life happens, and sometimes you feel overwhelmed.

I lost two staff jobs in my life. As a freelancer, you are only sometimes sure you lost a job to another person, or they just decided not to do a project. Either way, you still lost a job that someone asked you to bid on for them.

Each of us has taken control of some of our life decisions. Most of us chose to work on our school work to move on to the next grade. However, many of us decided to go to college to learn more so that we could work in a career of our choosing.

Each day I must work at not trying to live so much in the future that I create anxiety. Unfortunately, this is such a real struggle that I find more times than I care to admit; I succumb to the pressure and find myself in depression.

When unexpected bills and broken relationships happen, I often feel like I have no control over anything in my life.

Most of the time, prayer helps me lift my head and take a step forward. But God isn’t fixing all my problems.

The more that is on my mind, the more difficult it is to focus. I am reminding myself to look at each crisis and try to understand the things over which I have no control and the things I have overpowered.

The most challenging crisis that I constantly deal with in life is that of relationships. So many other problems in my life take just enough time from my relationships, damaging those relationships.

I believe that this is why there is so much depression and suicide in our culture today. Each of us is trying to deal with each crisis alone. I believe that even prayer time alone isn’t enough.

Prayer always helps me clear up some of the mess in my mind to remind me of my compass better and make plans to move forward each day.

I love how, in the Jewish tradition, memory is not just individual but also communal. For the Jewish people, collective memory flows through ritual and recital. 

This past weekend the 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb has a lot of similarities to the Passover seder.

Seder customs include telling the story, discussing the story, drinking four cups of wine, eating matza, partaking of symbolic foods, and reclining in celebration of freedom. The Seder is among the most commonly celebrated Jewish rituals performed by Jews all over the world.

On 9/11, the New York City Fire Department responded to the airplanes crashing into the Twin Towers. They rushed in as the office workers rushed out.

Elevators are generally tied to a fire detection system and are not available to occupants once the alarm sounds. So firefighters take to the stairs.

The importance of the Seder dinner is to relive Passover. You retell the stories, so you don’t forget and pass these traditions on to the next generation.

So Metro Atlanta Firefighters from various communities participated in the 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb at Sovereign Condominium on Saturday, September 10, 2022. The event is a fundraiser to help families when tragedy strikes a firefighter and they need help.

Some firefighters not only brought their children to witness the event but carried them while climbing the 110 stairs to remember. The children will see how taxing this is on their parents as those steps become more and more complex with each step.

What I love about the Passover Seder dinner is encompasses more than just the food. Each family adds to the first Passover stories, telling their family struggles through the years. They take what happened in the first Passover and connect their life story to it through their own families’ and communities’ stories.

Dorie Griggs, my wife, and chaplain of the Roswell Fire Department gave the invocation for the 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb. In its simplest form, invocation is a prayer or request for the spiritual presence of God in a ceremony or event. So, she was asking for God’s presence in the ritual just as Jews say a prayer each Passover.

We started the day with an invocation asking God to be present with us. Then, we told stories of firefighters’ families whose lives had benefited from the funds raised in the past 21 years since 9/11.

I thought it was touching that the day ended with CW 69 reporter interviewing my wife. Sharing the importance of remembrance of 9/11 firefighters and also firefighters in our communities who are sacrificing for us. We must tell those stories.

photo by: Dennis Fahringer

Two groups in my life have approached this topic of vocation with one thing in common. Both groups ask themselves if they have the talent to pursue a profession.

These two groups are photographers and those in ministry. They both start in photography or church without pay. They are hobbyists or volunteers in these vocations.

As they grow in their knowledge and skills within these two professions, many will be facing deciding whether this will be a career or a hobby/volunteer.

How do you know if your calling to ministry is real?

1. You possess the traits of a spiritual leader. In Paul’s letter, 1 Timothy 3, he describes the qualities of God’s shepherds.
2. You have a genuine desire to serve God.
3. Others are telling you’re well-suited for ministry.
4. God is flinging open the door of opportunity.
5. You’re spirit-filled.

I believe hobby photographers asking if they should do this professionally ask the same questions.

1. You possess the traits of a Photographer.
2. You have a genuine desire to serve others with your work.
3. People are asking to purchase your work or hire you.
4. The door of opportunity is wide open to you.
5. Photography fills your spirit with joy.

I have done both of these in one career.

I responded to being called to ministry in high school. My spirit was responding to God, wishing me to devote my life to serving in ministry full-time. They often become pastors, missionaries, nonprofit organization directors, and parachurch leaders. Over many years this calling would be merged with photography.

Paying The Bills & Fulfilling A Call

I think those with a faith background may be aware of the Apostle Paul, who had a dramatic calling by God on the way to Damascus. You may or may not be aware that his occupation was as a tentmaker. This is how he paid his bills.

During those times, synagogues did not have a single leader who preached every week like a rabbi or pastor does today.

So the concept of full-time ministry as we think of it is more recent than when the Apostles lived.

Part-time or Full-time or Hobby

Those called to the ministry and photographers familiar with others tell them they’re well-suited for that role.

You will find that all those who become professionals have an affirmation made by others.

Photographers will have people asking them to do photography for them. Those who feel a call into ministry will have a faith community asking them to serve in various roles.

If no one asks you to serve them, you will most likely remain a hobbyist or volunteer.

Now the difference between part-time and full-time is usually something that takes time.

As a person who pursued the call into full-time ministry, I first thought I would be going in the direction of a pastor. However, the church and my father, a minister, advised me to attend college and seminary. So while I was studying, I was doing other jobs and leading the church in volunteer roles.

My path with photography was similar. I first realized I needed education and did this with one-on-one learning with my uncle, a professional photographer. I bought lots of books and then spent almost all my free time in college doing photography. Finally, I got a part-time job working for the college paper and yearbook. These are paying positions. In my senior year, the photographer for East Carolina University quit their job and asked me to fill in until they found a full-time photographer.

During that time, the chief photographer for The Hickory Daily record saw my work and offered me a staff position.

At that moment, I could fulfill my calling to ministry with photography.

Earlier my uncle had introduced me to his mentor and former boss, Don Rutledge, who was doing photography for a missionary organization.

Summary

How do you know you should do something professionally? Regarding photography or the ministry, you must have others confirm that you are gifted. They will contact you and ask you to do photography, or if in church, they will call you and ask you to lead something in the faith community.

It would help if you spent time learning before you can be ready to work professionally.

These jobs don’t have to be full-time. You may find that your lifestyle for your family is better suited for you to keep your daily job to pay the bills and pursue your calling part-time.

You may find that you may need to pursue this full-time. However, I recommend that this is when you know this choice allows you to pay all your bills.   

This photo was taken during the Georgia Tech vs. Brigham Young 28-19 at Grant Field on September 21, 2002. [NIKON D100, 200.0-400.0 mm f/5.6, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 200, 1/1000, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 345)]

Photographers talk about the ISOs they choose to shoot sports on social media. But don’t they know you always try to pick the lowest ISO possible?

Some photographers post these comments on social media: “Is it possible to get sharp, relatively noise-free images at ISO 16,000? I pushed it to see what I could get away with, and I hit my level of noise tolerance.”

Why would you ever shoot a higher ISO if you can get away with a lower ISO?

The top photo was with my first digital camera, the Nikon D100, in 2002. The game was an early evening game. This photo was taken before sunset when there was still good light. At this point, the sun was low in the sky but still had ample light. The lighting conditions allowed me to shoot at ISO 200.

Photography is all about tradeoffs.

The tradeoff is due to the Exposure Triangle, where you balance 1) Shutter Speed, 2) Aperture, and 3) ISO.

In the days of film, this was a more significant tradeoff than today due to film ISO being much more limiting than today’s digital ISO.

You can watch the play action in the photo above of Florida State vs. Georgia Tech is here on YouTube.

Search for football photos before 2000, when most photographers were still filming. The noise didn’t exist then, but the grain was very noticeable in sports photos.

As we know, you can usually only get two of the three parts of the Exposure Triangle. Sports photographers want to freeze the action and have it in focus. Therefore, they sacrifice ISO.

As long as you emphasize sharp and in-focus photos, I suggest you always shoot the lowest ISO to achieve this.

Sometimes, photographers will choose a deeper depth of field because focusing isn’t ideal, and to ensure an in-focus photo, they then have to increase the ISO.

Other photographers shoot at a faster shutter speed to avoid motion and bump the ISO.

The bottom line is that all the veteran professional sports photographers I know are always looking to shoot the lowest ISO.

Today, with some post-processing possibilities, we are not as limited in our choices.

Drone photography allows real estate agents to showcase the entire property and all its exterior selling features in a single shot that receives that coveted 12 seconds of focus. What used to take several photos, which research shows most buyers won’t bother scrolling through, drones can capture in a single shot.

The photo above is a composite. I was limited to 400 feet straight above didn’t work so well, so I shot two shots and stitched them together.

In commercial real estate sales, the customer often buys the property without seeing it in person. Instead, they may be an investor from out of town and rely on drawings and photos to understand what they are purchasing.

The agent often wants to pitch the surroundings as value added for a particular plot of land.

When asked to get those aerial photos, I know I am getting pictures looking North, South, East, and West. I also know to get these from around 400 feet and then some at lower altitudes of 200 feet and even lower.

Detail shots in drone work for real estate capture specifics like buildings up close and access roads around the property.

I prefer stills to videos for a straightforward reason–they capture the property quickly for the audience.

Videos are fantastic if the customer wants to take the time to watch them, but they appreciate the still photos to give them a quick overview.

Here are some aerial photos I did today for a commercial real estate client. Which photos would you use as your primary photo if you were limited to just one photo?

[NIKON Z 9, VR 120-300mm f/2.8G + 2X Converter, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 22800, 1/2000, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 600)]

Getting sharp and in-focus photos of football, one must be sure you are using a fast shutter speed.

For my past two games at the Mercedes Benz stadium covering the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Games, I have been using 1/2000 as my shutter speed.

The primary lens I use with my Nikon Z9 is the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8G Sport with the TC-2001 2X Converter. I own the TC-1401, the 1.4X converter, but rarely use it.

I also have on my second Nikon Z9 the 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 lens. This lets me get a lot of different shots without the worry of not having the right lens to get a picture.

As long as the 2X converter is on the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8G Sport, I am shooting with ISO above ISO 11400. More than half of those action shots are at ISO 25600.

I use Lightroom to lower the noise by sliding the noise to about 40 on that scale.

Today’s cameras, especially Nikon’s Z9, let me get some of the best action shots in my career. Why? Shutter speed has got to be high, and secondarily, the camera must be able to lock in the focus on the players.

I have found that the Nikon Z9 focuses better than any camera I have ever owned, and the lack of noise is incredible at those ISOs I have to use.

Here are more photos with the settings that were used. Bear in mind that since the 45.7MP Stacked backside-illuminated sensor, it lets me crop a lot more than the Nikon D5.

My shutter speed settings for shooting sports are 1/4000 versus for weddings, 1/125, or 1/250.

For sports, my release mode is 20 fps versus for weddings, single frame.

Both of those settings affect my ISO. I use auto ISO for weddings and sports but mainly change the shutter speed.

If auto ISO sensitivity control is enabled, ISO sensitivity will automatically be adjusted for optimal exposure at the selected shutter speed and aperture. In addition, you can choose an upper limit for auto ISO sensitivity control to prevent ISO sensitivity from being raised too high.

TIP

Use the Shooting Menu Bank to save the settings you use for sports in one of the four presets you can even rename. Here are my four banks:

1. Normal
2. Sports
3. Strobes
4. Fluorescent

[NIKON Z 9, VR 120-300mm f/2.8G + 2X Converter, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 18000, 1/2000, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 600)]

My first football game with the Nikon Z9 was the Peach Bowl on December 30, 2021. Many changes have occurred since then regarding firmware updates and software updates with Adobe Lightroom and Camera Raw.

Just a few days ago, Nikon updated the firmware to Version 2.11. Lightroom is now version 11.5 with the camera Raw version 14.5.

We are getting a better dynamic range with less noise with Lightroom.

The firmware improved focusing and many other lists of improvements for the camera.

I can say that Nikon improved the camera’s performance since the game last December in Mercedes Benz Stadium.

I also noticed better handling of the files by Adobe Lightroom.

Here is an earlier post on my Z9 settings for sports.

Take a look at the results in the photos.

I was amazed at the slight noise in the photos. Some shots at ISO 5600 with the aperture of ƒ/2.8.

Some action shots are with an ISO 25600, as in this photo below.

The first skill one must master is the crafting of the narrative. We believe that the best students for the workshop are those with some experience as a writer or photographers.

Most of those taking the workshop want to learn to produce videos to tell stories. We teach how to do this alone. Most organizations can fund one person to go and tell a story, some can cover the costs for two people, and very few will be able to send a team. Those who learn to produce video stories without a team understand how all elements work together.

The one student who excelled beyond everyone else wasn’t a journalist but Jon Franz, a creative director. He was a master at creating storyboards, which is a huge help in planning your shot list. Jon was used to the director role but had never done the hands-on camera/audio/video editing himself. Instead, he had always directed others.

Jon says that the workshop was life-changing for his career. He discovered how to do more as just one person producing a story and understood how adding people was about upping the production value. He learned not just how to do it as a one-person band but also to be a better producer.

Those who didn’t have this background were learning how to craft a narrative to tell a compelling story.

While you do not have to have your storyline in this exact order to work, the essential elements need to be present.

Multimedia

The second skill needed to produce these packages is capturing the content using still images, audio, video, and the ability to edit this into a timeline.

We worked around the clock shooting and editing our projects. 

Which is more important?

So which is more important, the understanding of the storyline or multimedia? They are equally important. Both are needed to engage an audience.

Third major Element

The biggest mistake in communication forgets your audience is not there with you.

It would help not just think about the audience but start with them. Why should the audience even care about this story? What would be most interesting to them? After they hear the story, what actions should they be taking?

While I listed the audience last, it should be front and center. After all, there is a call to action for these stories on missions and nonprofits. The core message is that missionaries cannot do it alone and need the audience to give, go, and pray.

If you are interested in putting all these skills together, I can tell you that while all three are equally important, a learning curve and steps are necessary. The instructors serve as coaches to the storytellers. With their experience, they see things that only in time will you master.

I would highly recommend that you first learn a storyline and how to tell one. This skill is just you learning how to tell a bedtime story or a campfire story.

My recommendation for those wanting to be storytellers is to read The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler. You can get this on Amazon. Here is that link

Christopher Vogler is a veteran story consultant for major Hollywood film companies and a respected teacher of filmmakers and writers around the globe.

After reading this book, then start practicing.

A simple thing to do is start practicing by telling bedtime stories. If making things up is difficult, tell the story of how you got your job. The key is that these stories are not timelines of events, but there is a crisis that forces you to seek help.

Here are some basic guidelines for interviewing a subject:

1. Prepare carefully, familiarizing yourself with as much background as possible.
2. Establish a relationship with the source conducive to obtaining information.
3. Ask questions relevant to the source that induce the authority to talk.
4. Listen and observe.

After you gain the skill of storytelling, then you are ready to capture their story using multimedia. Mastering the storyline and capturing it on camera is what Storytellers Abroad Workshop teaches.

Please get in touch with me if you are interested in a workshop. My contact information is below.

There are many options for backgrounds for a headshot. However, whether this is an executive, actor, or casual, all backgrounds must have one thing in common there aren’t any distractions behind your subject.

Brick backgrounds have become popular in the past few years and can work. However, since they are rarely solid, the pattern of the bricks is much more distracting than something like brush strokes or solid.

A counseling center’s colors for their logo were teal. So I went to the fabric store and found a velvet-like fabric in teal to use as the background.

Now, this is the same background in the two side-by-side photos. The difference in the look has more to do with how I lit the background. How much light do you put on the background compared to the subject and evenly lit or with spot?

This background is the same in these two headshots. One on the left, I only had the light on the subject. The background is white and lit by the spillover from the leading light. In the right photo, I put light on the background to be sure it was white.

I would say the least often chosen is black. If you prefer it, you must use a hair light to help create a separation between the subject and the background. The separation becomes a merge if the hair or clothing is black. On the other hand, black can look quite good, as seen here with the tuxedo and black background.