[DJI Air 2s, Mode = Normal, ISO 100, 1/4000, ƒ/2.8, (35mm = 22)]

The pandemic cut the number of jobs most photographers and videographers were doing. It did give us time to practice, but it was hard some days to do anything.

I have been trying to remind myself to push and take out the cameras and shoot for myself.

Flying my drone has helped a great deal this past couple of years. It is still new to me, and the perspectives are not something I see daily walking around.

Sometimes I am on the ground looking up, as I did the other day in the Georgia International Convention Center parking lot in College Park, Georgia. I enjoy seeing things from a different perspective.

While visiting my daughter in Columbus, Georgia, the past couple of times, I took my drone out and flew it. Since she works at the Springer Opera House, a historic theater at 103 Tenth Street in Downtown Columbus, Georgia, I flew it over the facility.

Luck was on my side that day. The people at Springer saw the photos and realized a couple of days later that when they leaked into the ceiling, they could use my photos to find the leak.

I took out the drone earlier last month to show the work they were putting in 4 piers to help stabilize our shifting foundation. Now all this work is underground, and unless you saw them put it in, you would never know.

Of course, I took some close-up shots as well.

In July, we had our roof replaced due to hail damage. I took out the drone to get some photos to see what they were doing.

Look for those opportunities to Practice!

All these examples are just me showing that you can practice all the time. The things happening in the exact skills I am using for my projects will later be what I am called on to do for my clients.

While in Hawaii, I took my drone. Every year since 2006, I have been going to Kona but have never seen the campus where I taught from the air. I could see how close we were to downtown Kona.

By just deciding to practice and have fun, I could see the difference between daytime shooting and nighttime. I now have some examples of the exact location day and night to help customers understand the advantages of each time for their projects.

My daughter likes to experiment as much as I do, so we played around with colored gels for her college graduation shots. I hadn’t used these in more than 15 years, and pulling them out and trying something new was fun for us.

Practice is about experimenting and stretching yourself.

Artistically speaking, practice allows you to work out problems in a technique that mean the difference between a basic doodle and a resolved piece of art. Drawing the same or similar subjects repeatedly helps you learn the subject’s shape, form, and texture.

The more you practice, the better you will get. Being an artist is about experiencing new things and about individual creation. If you keep trying new mediums and new techniques, you’ll learn to incorporate more of them into finished projects and round out your skill set.

[NIKON D5, 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 4500, 1/250, ƒ/3.2, (35mm = 200)]

This month I have been covering Chick-fil-A’s first in-person events since the beginning of the pandemic. They are not treating this like we are all out of the woods.

One of the events I cover is where different departments have their first in-person meetings under an open tent. Before you are let on the property, you must go through the guard gate that asks about your health and if you have been around anyone with COVID for the past 14 days.

At another event, they are meeting indoors, and the only time the face masks are off is when someone is presenting or eating.

Earlier in the year, I took this photo inside the restaurant to help train Chick-fil-A operators and team members about protocols when they open their dining rooms again.

Chick-fil-A is being proactive as much as possible. Daily they are adjusting to all the demands of running a restaurant in this pandemic which has created supply chain issues and safety issues for them to provide service to their customers.

What are you doing right now with your business in terms of communications?

Are you getting together and trying to reconnect your team safely?

Jonathan Evans is the team chaplain for the Dallas Cowboys and the Mavericks, and an accomplished speaker, teacher, and author. He currently serves on the pastoral staff at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship with his father, Dr. Tony Evans. His sister, Priscilla Shirer, is a speaker, author, and actor; his brother, Anthony, is a singer and worship leader.

He was a keynote speaker who talked about how he was admitted to the hospital for heart issues. He had filled his “To Do List” with everyone but him. Even during a crisis, you still must take care of yourself.

“Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces.”

~ Winston Churchill

Churchill’s afternoon nap was a non-negotiable part of his relaxed approach to his daily routine. Churchill would start his day at 8 am by eating breakfast, answering letters, and dictating to his secretaries, all of which was conducted while still in bed. This work bout was followed by a bath, a long lunch, and plenty of sipping on watered-down whisky. After lunch, it was time to paint or play cards with his wife, Clementine. Then it was nap time. Churchill would take off his clothes and climb into bed for up to two hours of solid napping. At 6:30, he would rise, take another bath, and enjoy a long dinner. He finally got down to business at 11 pm and would work for several hours before going to bed and repeating the cycle over again.

Tim Tassopoulos was fascinated that Churchill took time every day for a nap during World War II. Tassopoulos encouraged everyone to take care of themselves because if they were not healthy, they could not take care of their teams.

Dan Cathy is also a licensed FAA pilot who is drawing on that experience, was also talking to the operators of the restaurants about taking care of themselves. He spoke of his training as a pilot that when you lose cabin pressure, the pilot is to first put on their mask before deploying the shows for everyone else. Low pressure would cause little more discomfort in the ears and eyes, but the associated drop in oxygen levels makes people pass out if they do not put their oxygen masks on within about 15 seconds.

Relationships are Important

Strong relationships are essential to your happiness and healthy life. People with good friendships handle stress much better; a good friend can help you in difficult times. People with a supportive partner recover better from heart attacks and other illnesses.

People can energize us, elevate our mood, encourage activity, boost the immune system, and increase longevity. Our physical and mental health are intertwined–when one goes down, it affects the other. The more stressed we are, the more our immune system is depressed, and the more likely we will get illnesses and diseases.

“I believe strongly that, particularly in the vaccinated people, if you’re vaccinated, and your family members are vaccinated, those who are eligible — that is, very young children are not yet eligible — that you can enjoy the holidays,” said Fauci. However, unvaccinated or partially-vaccinated people should be more cautious and take measures like wearing a mask, gathering outside, and getting tested before any celebrations.

Doug Parkin, volunteer pediatrician from Arizona is seeing patients during his two month service at the Baptist Medical Center in Nalerigu, Ghana. [NIKON D2X, Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 800, 1/40, ƒ/2.8, (35mm = 42)]

Have you ever had to wait on diagnosis and they took forever at the hospital or doctors office?

Don’t do that to your team or customers.

Had the World Health Organization or the Centers for Disease Control waited until they could put out a message that wouldn’t change, millions more could have died from COVID-19.

Your organization needs to be communicating during these times often and in all the messaging streams where your audience is for your organization.

Be Timely

The speed of your communication in today’s ever-connected digital society means if you are not telling your story, everyone else will. Getting your message out right away shows your organization is aware of the situation. You are ready to take this on.

Most important is that the audience is most likely interested in your message.

Acknowledge Uncertainty

I think while this might not be what you lead with in your messaging, it must be the fire for why you don’t procrastinate during a crisis.

Tell only what you know. Doing so in an empathetic voice is a great way to acknowledge the frustration everyone is feeling.

When you go for surgery, they have you sign many papers acknowledging they may find something else.

Don’t Over-Reassure

It is better to overestimate the problem and then say that the situation is better than first thought.

What are you communicating?

This COVID-19 has put many people in a waiting room to hear from YOU.

This is one of the most critical times in organizations’ history for the past 100 years for the need for communication.

People need to know what your organization is doing and plans to do in the coming months. Be like the CDC and get your message out there. Let people know this is what you know right now; if changes happen, you will also communicate that to them.

So, what do people need to know? Assume they need to know what you will not be doing as well as what you will be doing.

Acknowledge fear, pain, suffering, and uncertainty if they are genuine emotions for the situation. Always be as human as possible. You are building a relationship with your audience. Make sure that the relationship is built on honesty and integrity.

Union University Photography Students during a photo weekend at Morris Abernathy’s home outside of Nashville, Tennessee July 19, 2003.

Aside from learning new things and finding a way to meet up, you can also build new professional relationships, gain friendships with like-minded people and even get to know people on a more personal level. 

Early in my career, I would go to conferences and workshops as a way to get feedback on my work. I wanted to improve and early on there was a lot of room for improvement.

In 1987, Jim Veneman and I both were trying to get better. We had begun a friendship because we both worked for similar organizations. We wanted to get the staff from MissionsUSA & The Commission Magazines together and others.

That first group included as well as some of our spouses:

• Don Rutledge
• Joanna Pinneo
• Mark Sandlin
• Paul Obregon
• Warren Johnson
• Jim Veneman
• Stanley Leary

This group would get together, share what everyone was doing, and then invite others to join the group, like Thomas Kennedy & William Allard.

Attending a workshop is like gifting yourself a new possibility to learn something new from peers with better experience and knowledge to share a new bee into the world of professionals. 

Building new relationships and meeting new connections are essential to personal growth. A workshop gives you as a professional the best opportunity to meet other people who share your interests. It is always a pleasure to meet someone with the same enthusiasm you do. Attending a workshop is a great way to meet other people in your area with shared interests. Of course, a friendship will not be guaranteed to flourish, but it never hurts to try. You will at least be able to find a friend and somebody who knows your “talk shop,” as it were, i.e., to discuss matters concerning your work, etc.

This Year

I organized this year a ZOOM meeting on Fridays to replicate the best I could this concept of getting together and getting to know other colleagues.

For those who love Photojournalism, I recommend attending this year’s event online. The 2021 Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar will take place virtually November 9-13, 2021, marking 49 consecutive years of the most extended continuously operating photojournalism conference in America.

In Person Events

I am planning to host some fun get-togethers shortly. I am looking to host a lighting workshop for a few hours one day. If you are interested, let me know so I can put you on the notification list. These will be in the Metro Atlanta Area.

Are you in crisis mode when it comes to finding employees?  

I have a tip, communicate to your potential employees like you have been doing with your customers.

 “Don’t start a business. Find a problem, solve a problem; the business comes second.” 

– Robert Herjavec, Shark Tank

No matter the business, you are solving a problem for someone. It would help if you were sure the client understands everything that needs to take place for your solution to be a success.    

Today you are competing not just with customers but for employees.  

You will use the same process for marketing your business to customers, but now for finding those employees.  

No longer are the days that you can say I have a job opening, and people are lining up for you to pick someone. 

Just like you created a product that solves a problem, you need to address the issues now that workers have with the workplace. 

Now you might just be solving every one of those problems. You have significant benefits, your employees like you as a boss, and your business makes a difference in the community, but no one is applying.

Most places have the same problem with marketing their business and finding employees. 

Show & Tell 

People have a short attention span. We know that infomercials work. The purpose of infomercials is to prompt the viewer to call a toll-free number or visit a website to purchase. An advantage of infomercials for companies is increased time to showcase a product, demonstrate how it works, and present a clear call to action. 

Applying the “Problem – Agitate – Solve” principle is a valuable tool for a significant effect on your business. Digging into the consumers’ common problems allows you to empathize, connect with them, provide solutions to their problems, and make them feel better. Of course, they won’t care about buying your product if it is not helpful to them. 

Having infomercials for your products/services is an excellent way of showing how it works. Describing how it is effective is always helpful, but people are visual. Viewers love seeing things in action. It would give bonus points to compare how you’re better than the other competitors in a respectful manner.

I think the great photo of employees and short text telling their story works excellent on social media. 

Also, short videos work as well. Tips for recruiting

• Target your audience; where do they congregate?
• Use testimonies of current employees.
• Communicate how people can grow with your company.
• Talk about how your company impacts the community ~ people are looking for a sense of purpose

 Call me, and let’s put together a campaign to recruit employees.

[Photo by Dennis Fahringer]

Today, a friend wrote to me, “Just read your blog about conflict coverage. Great article, BUT will your audience listen to you and heed your advice?”

Here is my response.

Please write to me and let me know what you think.

Good to hear from you. Two things give us wisdom. 

1. Experiential Learning ~ This is what Steve Jobs called “Wisdom From Accumulated Scar Tissue” Even from personal first-hand experience, not everyone will learn, as you know.
2. Traditional Learning ~ This is what the education system is all about. This is where you are learning from others’ experiences.

I believe one other way is a mixture of the two. Most freelancers, I think, fall into this category. It is where things are not working that you are doing, and you join ASMP, NPPA, or go to workshops. You realize others have the experience you need. You are what I call a motivated learner. 

Since 2006 I have been leading a workshop for a Christian organization on Storytelling. It would work for anyone or any organization.

We take people overseas [the lure] and give them a person to help tell their story. That person was selected because the organization is trying to raise funds for a program. The person for the story is an example of what the program is all about.

We have already established a workflow involving crafting the story and working in Adobe Premiere. James Dockery, editor for ESPN, and I coach them. At the end of this workshop, those generally have an “A-Ha” moment. They signup to retake the workshop. They realize that the first time they did OK, but they knew they needed to practice. They also understood they still wanted a coach/mentor to help them.

A few of these people now work for the organization overseas. They went to work in Columbia, South America, and Togo, West Africa. 

Due to my blog, I have gotten numerous jobs. I just did one yesterday helping a guy who does the woodturning. He wanted to know how to take better photos of his bowls. While I would have loved that he hired me to shoot the bowls, he paid me to teach him how to do it.

I got the gig I have for the past 12 years with Chick-fil-A because of the blog. The guy who hired me realized I was an expert and that many photographers go to me for advice. So why not get that guy.

We have all heard about the 80/20 Rule. Mathematically, the 80/20 rule is roughly described by a power law distribution (also known as a Pareto distribution) for a particular set of parameters. Many natural phenomena have been shown to exhibit such a distribution. It is an adage of business management that “80% of sales come from 20% of clients”.

I don’t have any research to support my belief, but I think that less than 5% of any field is doing 90% of the work. They are the experts. They either know much more than the rest or have surrounded themselves with a team of experts. 

I then believe that only about 1 or 2% of the group can teach and do excellent work. They are not necessarily the top 2% grossing, but they have enough of the understanding and ability to teach what they know so that others can understand.

1. If you could identify the top 10%, you could market to that group. Top 10%: Marketing to people and companies who need your services right now, typically described as “inbound marketing.”
2. Lower 90%: Marketing to people who don’t need your services but will someday.

Jeremy Miller, a brand strategist, is the one who created the “Sticky Branding”. 

The first mode is where companies feel the most confident, and it receives the lion’s share of the marketing budget. The challenge is much marketing investment is ineffective because it falls on deaf ears.

Paul Emond, CEO of Versature, sums up the situation nicely, “When people aren’t in the buying mode, they don’t want to be sold.”

The second mode of marketing is opportunity. Rather than trying to engage people when they have a need, engage them earlier in the Lower 90%. Establish the relationship and develop rapport before they’re ready to buy.

Create an opportunity where your customers know, like, and trust your company long before they need it. That way, they’ll skip right over the inbound marketing messages and call your company first when they have a need.

Sticky Brands are built in the Lower 90 Percent because they understand the importance of relationships. Their brand is not based on aggressive marketing and pitching. It’s based on a personal connection where customers know, like, and trust them.

Summary

I just put my brand out there to help; when people are ready, they will reach out to me and engage with me. Maybe you are one of those people who read to the end of this article. Please send me an email and tell me what you think [email protected]

Ya Ya Sebre is from Ouamani. [NIKON D2X, AF Zoom 70-200mm f/2.8D, ISO 200, ƒ/2.8, 1/250, Focal Length = 225]

I have been to Burkina Faso and Ghana, located in West Africa. In Burkina Faso alone, there are over 82 different groups, each with a foreign language.

While French is the official language of the country—not everyone speaks it.

So, how do you take photos with a language barrier?

The best way to approach these golden opportunities in an exotic location is to keep it simple. You want to spend all your time developing relationships with the people—not fidgeting with your equipment. Preplanning helped me to concentrate on communication and not my equipment once in West Africa.

What are the elements for a good photo? Well, the Washington Post’s photo editors use this hierarchy for picture selection:

• Informational
• Graphically Appealing
• Emotional
• Intimate

The photos which just have documented the scene and look pleasing like a postcard often lack the last two elements of the hierarchy. These are wrapped up in understanding the universal language of body language. Body language was all they had during the silent movie days, but it still worked and kept people laughing and crying.

Photographers who shoot those award-winning journalistic photos concentrate on capturing people’s body language.

Smiles mean pretty much the same the world over. However, there is much more than just the obvious in body language. A tilt in the head or someone leaning in versus hands crossed all communicate something different. Learning to recognize these subtleties will only help you with half the equation.

You also need to know what your body language is communicating.

You may want to watch your facial expressions in the mirror before you try them on strangers. Knowing how you are perceived will give you the best advantage to put people at ease and get the most cooperation possible.

Before snapping photos of people, take the time and communicate with them as much as possible. If you do this first, your photos will be much better because you have established a relationship from which you can get their cooperation. Photographs that meet the highest standards of intimacy require the subject to let you into their world.

If you want to read more on this subject, there are many books available like “How to Read and Use Body Language” by Anna Jaskolka.

Just remember to travel light and emphasize the critical stuff—body language—the subjects, and yours.

We have all seen the photo of too much stuff in a photograph.  Because the photographer does not attempt to select one subject, the picture fails to communicate.  The “run-on sentence” is the written word comparison to this visual example.

A close-up of detail frequently reveals more of the subject than a picture of the whole subject. Too many want to shoot general views. After all, 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 quickly appreciate and understand. It tells the story in compressed, sometimes dramatic, by scaling down to point out a specific idea with the most significant effect.

In approaching a subject, decide how much to include in the camera’s viewfinder.  You must force yourself to look around the issue at each corner and everything within the viewfinder’s frame.  If anything in the picture area detracts from the theme, move in closer to eliminate it; if not enough, drive back to include more.  The key to this exercise is to know what you want. This way, the details will fall naturally into place, and “composition” is achieved.

I have found this procedure in teaching photography students most effective.  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, bit by bit, that lots of things you see in a picture are unimportant, and so you know how to select the part or parts that are most meaningful.

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

Give me a call about your next project. 

Keeping up with the regular maintenance schedule can help prevent costly cooling, transmission system, drivetrain repairs, and other components. Preventive car care reduces wear and tear of the engine and other features that extend the life of your vehicle.

If we similarly ran our communication for organizations the same, we would be using bottom-up thinking. A bottom-up approach is piecing together systems to give rise to more complex designs as in a communications plan. It involves getting the front-line worker into the strategy meeting.

You are going to the mechanic to help you get the most out of the vehicle. Isn’t this what you want with your organization.

Before implementing your strategy or project, get those who will do the work to help guide you.

Which Mechanic?

In my area, if you ask around as to what shop to take your car to when you need a repair is Roswell Auto Center. When you Google for reviews, you see things like, “Carl and Robert have always taken care of our family’s cars, and we completely trust them.” I also saw something like, “… have integrity which means a lot.”

You don’t look for young, excellent experts; the shop has a great coffee station.

Great Communication for Organizations

Many organizations today think the youngest people are more in touch and therefore know how to communicate with their age group. If this were true, today’s youth wouldn’t be suffering from as much anxiety.

There is a HUGE difference between being a CONSUMER of communication and a PRODUCER of communication.

Clients benefit in several ways when they include me as part of their creative team. Not only will the project be smoother and faster, but more importantly, the end product will be just as you want them to be, and your budget will go further.

The sooner the content producer is involved in the planning and preparation, the better.

Recently I had a client with a super tricky product to technically capture. The most significant difficulty in the process is getting the client to trust me.

When I took my van to the dealership a year ago, the service manager told me I needed all this work done for my engine. $4,000+ estimate. Due to a few earlier incidents of them always trying to upsell me, I took that estimate to Roswell Auto Center. They just laughed at the estimate. They said it would be cheaper and better just to replace the engine. Since I wasn’t having trouble, and that was a recommendation, I just drove it.

Then just recently had an oil puddle in my garage under my van. I took it to Roswell Auto Center. I was prepared to hear about the engine needing replacement. I got a call, and I needed a seal replaced. The guys in the shop also said this was in excellent condition.

It isn’t about getting an estimate, as you can see. It would help if you had someone with the reputation and wisdom to speak about your project.

For a Photography Project

During the planning session, we discuss the feelings the photos need to invoke in the viewer. We can better achieve our objectives by working together from the beginning. Preplanning lets everyone concentrate on the fine details when it truly counts – on the day of the shoot.

During the actual shoot, priorities can change. Certain shots emerge as “must have” pictures, while others may become less essential than initially thought. Going for the best photos and dropping or limiting the others can stretch the budget yet still produce outstanding images.

Here is an example of stretching a photo budget. When working with universities and schools, it is more expedient, since most general classrooms look alike, to set up in only one classroom. The faculty and students rotate through the school where all the lights have been placed and the exposure and white balance determined. There is no need to move from building to building. This saves time and money.

As you consider your photo needs consider adding me to your creative team, that decision will save time and money and ensure a more productive and creative photo shoot.

I’m here to help; give me a call.