[NIKON D5, Sigma 120.0-300.0 mm f/2.8 Sport + TC-2001 2X Converter, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 8000, 1/4000, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 440)]

Photojournalism

I first started shooting college football when I was a student at East Carolina University.

Back then, I was trying to get a good action photo. I would shoot sports for newspapers, Associated Press, Wire Services, and Georgia Tech.

I was either looking for the game’s play or the reaction to it.

Public Relations

Shooting for Georgia Tech is public relations and not journalism. I was essentially advertising the school for Georgia Tech.

You look for the celebrations after the touchdowns.

When working for a newspaper, I usually covered the hometown team mainly. I constantly covered it for the school when I worked for Georgia Tech. Wire Service I was more balanced.

Commercial

In 2008 I started covering the event for the Sponsor of the Peach Bowl–Chick-fil-A. I was still looking for the same shots, but now with a twist. I needed branding.

I often shoot a little looser to get the logos into the shot.

For the Kickoff Games this year, the teams do not have the logo for the Kickoff on the uniform.

In 2013 you can see the patch on the uniform. This made it so much easier. I was shooting tight shots and still had the brand.

However, this year when I shot a tight shot, I often had no branding.

My job is to find the logos around the field and the position where the action takes place between me and those logos.

Nick Saban, the head football coach for Alabama, put on the Trophy Leather Helmet, which has the logo.

Had I tried to do this when I was just starting to shoot sports it would have been impossible for me. You need years of understanding a sport to anticipate the action.

After a while, it is no longer luck but persistence that yields the results.

Claudio Cesar Aguirre is seen in front of the Chicken Coop that was created with the help of Honduras Outreach. He is president of their community economic development. He is thrilled because now that they have an egg farm, they can now think of adding a bakery. [NIKON D4, 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 160, 1/100, ƒ/8, (35mm = 14)]

Show & Tell

Show and tell (or show and share) is usually the first opportunity young children have to stand up in front of a small group and speak. The chance to do a show and tell might come up in kindergarten or once they start primary school. It is a beautiful introduction to public speaking as children are often given the option of speaking about a topic they know well and are interested in. Talking about something you love always makes you love it even more!

Show and tell is used to develop storytelling ability, bridge school and home, forge connections and bonds between students, help teachers better understand their students, and enhance students’ communication skills, including feelings.

Having your prized possessions as the talking point will emphasize your confidence, and it is always helpful to talk about something you are passionate about!

In Business You Better Be Passionate

Perhaps you’ve heard of a famous book by author Robert Fulghum? It’s called All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It revolves around a simple yet powerful philosophy that the most basic lessons we learn as children can still apply to many adult life aspects.

Show & Tell is a cornerstone of all business. In kindergarten, you talked about your favorite item and what it meant to you.

In business, you talk about your product and what it can do for your audience.

Beyond getting up and presenting your product, this same technique is used to teach. In the beginning, the Suzuki method emphasizes learning music by ear over reading written musical notation. Teachers play and have the students follow. Showing with music also involves hearing.

Show & Tell Also Great For Teaching

As you bring people into your company, you must educate them on your products, procedures, and more.

I took a variety of education courses for my master’s degree. I learned during this time why I was often struggling in some subjects. Teachers I had and even my children later didn’t understand the stages of learning.

Teachers must teach each step; students often fail if they miss a degree. A great example of this was recent for me. My daughter was upset when her supervisor said she hadn’t cleaned the bathrooms properly. She is starting at an entry-level position in a theater, where you get stuck with janitorial duties.

My daughter started to take photos to show she had done the work. The problem wasn’t that she wasn’t cleaning, but the theater had a particular way they cleaned the bathrooms. The supervisor was grading my daughter on her evaluation level of execution. See the stages above.

The supervisor never told or taught my daughter how to clean the bathrooms but was expecting her to do it.

There are at least two times in training that Show & Tell is used. First, a trainer shows the employee how to do something. Then, the student shows the trainer what they learned by demonstrating it back to the trainer.

Excellent training not just shows but tells why each thing is done. When employees show what they learned, they should also tell the trainer why they do it.

This coffee farmer in Salvador Urbina, Chiapas, Mexico, is showing a tour group from the US a coffee plant and how they grow coffee. Show & Tell, but with a big “Why.”

He is part of a Coffee Farmers Cooperative they formed that helped him from getting only about $30 a bag of coffee to $110 a bag. At $30, they were losing money. His son went to Atlanta, GA, to work on golf courses to send money back home for them to eat and survive. Today this coffee grower was thrilled that his family is back together again. All because they formed a cooperative. They now roast their coffee with the others in the cooperative and sell directly to the customer.

Like Kindergarten, Show & Tell is about sharing what is important to you. It is your passion. To me, this photo of the grandfather shows the coffee plant and how they grow it, ending his presentation about how those on tour are helping his family stay together and thrive in Mexico.

Storytelling is backed up by science

There is a scientific explanation for our love of stories: when we hear a story that resonates with us, our levels of a hormone called oxytocin increase. Oxytocin is a “feel good” hormone.

When we hear facts, it activates the data processing centers in our brains, but when we listen to stories, it activates the sensory centers in our brains.

Neuroscientists found that when listening to a well-told story, the same areas of the brain light up on an MRI in both the storyteller and listener. Your brain, as the listener, mirrors the brain of the storyteller.

In other words, when you hear a well-told story, your brain reacts as if you are experiencing it yourself.

Give me a call, and I can help you tell your story. I will help you with the Show & Tell for your business.

Ashley Nicole Westbrook & Mark Loggins Wedding [NIKON Z 6, 24.0-105.0 mm f/4.0, Mode = Manual, ISO 1250, 1/50, ƒ/9, (35mm = 24), off camera flash with the Flashpoint XPlor 600 HSS TTL]

The best part of shooting weddings is helping make one of the most important days in one’s life memorable. I know that after the wedding day, very little is left for the bride and groom other than the images captured on their day.

One thing I love to do for all my brides gets the photos to them quickly. I usually have all the images delivered in 48 hours.

Now weddings are often about crisis management. Plans are made, and at the last minute, things are constantly changing.

The photographer needs to be the one helping solve those issues as they rise and not the one creating a crisis for the bride or groom.

This past year has had wedding planners and couples adjusting their plans. COVID-19 has had people have to be quarantined after coming in contact with someone who has COVID. Then people you planned to be part of the wedding must drop out.

I often find that the guys have fewer changes, are ready to go, and need little time for photos.

Hair and makeup take time with a bride. I love capturing those moments.

Camera & Lighting Changes

Because things change on the wedding day, you must be super flexible.

I am jumping from one location to the other as the Bride & Groom are getting ready. I am shooting inside and outside and moving from different inside areas to another inside location.

When the couple does their first dance, I change settings to create some motion blur to show movement. Then I have to adjust for other photos.

I am constantly looking for those “moments,” and they do not happen in the same place and with the same lighting.

Some of the wedding party sneaks outside to decorate a car. Then back inside for dancing.

If you were to walk behind me, taking photos on your latest camera on your phone, many of the pictures would not come out. I am adding light.

While you can shoot many photos without a flash, I use it to help get better colors.

I use the Godox V860IIN on TTL with the Magmod Sphere on many photos where I cannot set up an off-camera flash. I usually have it pointing straight up.

Because I use flash a great deal to get better colors, I can turn my photos around a lot quicker than many wedding photographers.

Here are some ways Brides & Grooms can use the photos since they get these within 48 hours of the wedding.

Saying “Thank You”

While most couples dread handwriting 150 personalized notes, the deed must be done. And sooner rather than later—for gifts received after the wedding, you’re supposed to get thank-yous out within two months after you return from the honeymoon.

My couples can use their thank you cards’ photos from the wedding day.

Change Your Name

Once you’ve changed your social security card and driver’s license, everything else should be a piece of cake. Some places may only require a phone call. Make a list (post office, employers/payroll, voter registration office, alumni associations, and so on) and notify each organization. Change everything else!

Now for those changing their names, you may want to send cards to some people with your new name change, address, phone numbers, and email addresses.

While you have many things related to the wedding to use the photos for, you can use some of these for those holiday cards, like Christmas Cards.

Usually, during the holiday, many people send out Holiday cards and even include letters to catch up with their friends and family on what has happened the past year.

Because I am an FAA Part 107 certified drone pilot, I can take photos at weddings. Due to limitations on flying over people, I arrive early and try and get a few pictures of the venue.

Camera Crisis

While everything above is pretty normal regarding weddings, there are other things that I often deal with other than people getting ready.

My camera did not work as I usually anticipate it to in one situation. I finally reset the camera to factory settings and started over getting it so I could take some more photos.

This doesn’t happen when you are in between shootings. I had just finished shooting some photos inside and went outside. I was shooting the dress by itself and just started using my off-camera flash for the first time. The settings were not working the way I was expecting. They needed the dress for the bride to get dressed. It took me a good 5 minutes to temporarily solve the problem.

This is why brides and grooms would be best hiring seasoned pros and not having a relative with a camera shooting their first wedding to save money. After all, if someone screws up and you don’t have photos, you can’t easily reshoot everything.

I showed how to do this in my room with a lower ceiling, but we used the high ceiling for the class’s shooting.

The photo was combined with five bracketed photos to create an HDR ambient photo using Lightroom. Then, the flash shots of the room and the images were blended into PhotoShop.

Here is the Step-by-step process

The Camera Settings to start are ISO 400, ƒ/7.1, and the Shutter speed will be based on the metering.

Shoot five bracketed exposures of -2EV, -1EV, 0EV, +1EV, and +2EV. As you can see in this example, I have to skew this up one stop.

When shooting interiors, you usually shoot one stop brighter than what the camera would say is normal. This is because most interiors have a lot of light or white walls.

Whatever the exposure is for the frame in the middle of the two over- and underexposed frames, note the shutter speed. If there is no window with light coming in like here, you would be sure your shutter speed is two times faster. I shot 1/20 for the middle shot. Based on that, I would have shot at 1/80 to be two stops darker.

However, I made it even darker to get closer to the outside exposure. So, to get the outside balanced, I shot at 1/160 using my flash to get a good exposure inside. If it is too dark or light, I adjust the power of the flash to get a good exposure.

I usually bounce my flash with white ceilings, but for this one, I just raised the flash about 15 feet and shot pointed down. It creates shadows that we will fix later.

I put the flash here to eliminate those shadows from the light in the earlier shot.

Shoot another shot, blowing out around the window. Shoot so the outside is well exposed and the inside around the window is overexposed.

Shot one without the flash as a safe shot if needed due to reflections on the window.

Now to Editing

Select all five ambient shots.

When in Lightroom, correct the lens, as seen above. You should be in the Lens Corrections tab, then the Profile tab and I will check both. Your lens will usually pop up; if not, use the pull-down menu to find it.

Select all the images and right-click to get this menu to pop up. Select HDR.

Now select the HDR the flash shots you did, and right-click. Select Edit In>Open as Layers in Photoshop.

On the far right, after all the photos have loaded, you will see them stacked in the Layers panel. Top to bottom will be in the order they were shot. Click on the top one, and holding the Shift Key, click on the last one at the bottom, selecting all of them. Go to the top menu bar to Edit and choose Auto-Align Layers, as I have done here.

You will then see this pop-up.

If the Auto is checked here, then click on OK.

Click on your top image, which, in this case, is my Ambient HDR. Then, just above, click and change it from Normal to Luminosity.

While the top layer is still selected, we will create a Hide Mask. Hold down the Option Key on a Mac & click on this icon that the red arrow is pointed to above.

You will see this after that step. Be sure the white brackets are about the black box. If not, the following steps will not work. Check this every so often to ensure you are OK.

Click on “B”

This now has you using the brush tool. Be sure your toolbar on top is normal, has an opacity of 100%, and flows at 20%. Where you see the 175 below the circle [Your number may be different], click on it, and this will pop up.

Hardness needs to be at 0%, which feathers the brush. To make the brush bigger, click on them ]; to make it smaller, click on [.

Now, we are almost ready to paint. We are not seeing the HDR; we are now seeing our first flash photo.

I clicked on the eye in the layers level to turn off the top two photos. I want to move the third one to just below the top HDR photo and the first Flash photo. Then, we repeat for that layer to create another hidden mask. See the instructions above on how we did that for the HDR. When you are done, it will look like this.

Now, be sure you press “B” so you have the brush and that the white box is on top of the black box on the left, as seen below. If the boxes are reversed, then click on “X” to toggle between them.

Brush over the shadows of the ceiling fan and the hanging light; this is what I got if you mistake toggle to black with the “X” and reverse what you did.

Now, I am going to click on the HDR, make sure the white brackets are around the black box in the layers, and paint over some of the other shadows caused by the flash.

The last step is to take the Window Pull on the bottom and drag it to the top. Change it from Normal Mode to Darken and create a Layer Mask Hide. Then, using the brush, paint just the windows.

It’s not a big difference, but now you know how to do it. Select all the Layers and then click COMMAND + E to flatten them. Click on COMMAND + S to save it. Go back to Lightroom.

Find the image that will most likely be HDR-Edit.tif. Crop the photo, correct any last color, contrast, or other errors, and export it as a JPEG. You can see some of my changes on the right.

Final Image

By the way, some students turned on the lights after I mentioned it to them. Christopher Morgan got a perfect photo of the adjoining room. His lens wasn’t as wide as mine, but he got a great shot.

[DJI Air 2s, Mode = Normal, ISO 300, 1/15, ƒ/2.8, (35mm = 22)]

As you can see from the photo above, much of the photo is dark, with just the areas where lights are lighting up.

During the day, everything has the same amount of light in the photo.

Now here is the exact location during the daytime and nighttime.

Here is not just an example of daytime and nighttime; this is how locations will take advantage and add colored lights to their water fountains at night.

During the daytime, they don’t even run the fountain as much. Not as dramatic. Now there was heavy overcast when this was shot early morning.

I hope you know why photographers like getting up before sunrise and shooting at sunset. Find a location like I did for these photos and shoot them in the daytime and then nighttime with your phone.

My daughter, Chelle, just finished her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Performance this summer from Columbus State University.

The Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree is considered the most prestigious bachelor’s degree you can receive in the visual arts. 

Growing up the daughter of a photographer and majoring in theatre made her a natural in front of the camera. So, when it came time to plan for announcements, Chelle did her research and sent me some of her Pinterest boards on ideas.

The one on the left is with the flash, and the one on the right is without flash. See how much it helps. You can’t get this photo with your phone’s camera. It would help if you had the flash.

She wanted some photos in a park in Columbus, Georgia. I had her stand on the edge of the shade of the tree. The sun is catching her hair to give us a hair light, but she can easily open up her eyes because she doesn’t have the sun on her face—no squinting in these exterior photos.

This is the flash I am using off camera to take these photos.

The trigger I use on the camera to talk to the flash by radio built into the transmitter and flash.

After getting a few shots outside, we moved inside. Chelle wanted colored lights as well as capturing her Halloween-themed decorations.

The flash to the left has an orange gel, and the one on the right has purple gel. The camera is on a tripod.

Note the camera specs. I am using a shutter speed of 1/3 second. This was to get the lights on the wall to show up.

We just played around, got different looks and expressions, and saw what we could create together.

Now I love the Nikon Z6 camera. I am letting it focus on her eyes. I have never really needed anything above 24 megapixels.

I changed the aperture from ƒ/9 to ƒ/4 to focus more on Chelle, but I like the ƒ/9 because that lets me pull the background into more focus and let you know a little more about how much she loves Halloween. Doesn’t everyone enjoy dressing up, playing like someone else, and indulging in candy?

Tips

The experts agree it is tacky for grads to mention gift registries or suggestions on an invitation, making it hard for guests to know what to give; guests can seek recommendations when they RSVP, advises Post. Many people automatically think of giving the graduate money as a present.

On college graduation announcements, you should always include your name, school, the year of your graduation, and the degree you received. You shouldn’t abbreviate the title of your degree. Spell out “Bachelor of Arts” or “Bachelor of Science” instead of putting “B.A.” or “B.S.”

What is Chelle doing?

Chelle is working at the Springer Opera House. The Springer Opera House is a historic theater at 103 Tenth Street in Downtown Columbus, Georgia. First opened on February 21, 1871, the theater was named the State Theatre of Georgia by Governor Jimmy Carter for its 100th anniversary season, a designation made permanent by the 1992 state legislature.

This is the setup that I used to take this time-lapse. Using a 32″ Slider and made a 90-minute time-lapse. Shot with my Nikon Z6 using Samyang 14mm ƒ/2.8.

Shot a photo every 9 seconds for 600 images. I took 30 frames off due to needing to change a setting. So the time is 19 seconds rather than 20. This is one part of a larger project. I am using maybe 8 to 10 seconds of this time-lapse. That will either be a clip or sped up.

Here are some drone shots to show the location we were working with to make the time-lapse. The client is the one who made the street Solar LED Lights.

Shot this barn on Yellow Creek Road in Ball Ground, Georgia [DJI Air 2s, Mode = Normal, ISO 140, 1/2000, ƒ/2.8, (35mm = 22)]

I am starting to plan those little outings with friends that were impossible just a couple of months ago. I am only planning these outings with my friends who have gotten their vaccinations for COVID-19.

We drove up to Ball Ground, Georgia, to visit Gibbs Gardens for the day. One of the things I love about the gardens is the bronze statues. Most are depictions of children enjoying the parks. I think the artist did an excellent job of capturing their expressions.

People from my generation or older grew up with our parents telling us to go outside, and most of us did just that. We played all day long until our parents would holler to get us back in for dinner. We had not heard of kidnappings during my years growing up.

When I was young, you could see me on this tractor peddling through Kennedy Home, an orphanage where my father worked as a pastor/chaplain on the campus.

Later during primary school, I was on my bike exploring my neighborhood. I remember the fun of going through the woods and stumbling upon beautiful scenery. Gibbs Garden’s scenery is a better version of those scenes but still made me appreciate getting out and exploring.

I enjoyed seeing the reflections in the water at Gibbs Gardens.

While driving to Gibbs Gardens, I told my friend I wanted to stop by this farm scene on the way back. My friend reminded me of it, and not only did I quit, but I also got out my drone to get a different perspective. The very first photo is of the entrance to the farm.

We didn’t go in, but I sent the drone up and above to get some different photos of this abandoned building on the farm.

This past year I helped a few families organize their photos. Because they were isolated at home, they explored their photos. I hope you did as well. I just wanted to remind you to be sure you take pictures as you explore once again beyond your home.

Be sure and put copies up on Google Photos, Amazon Photos [free with prime], or something else to help preserve these photos for your family generations from now.

The above photo is the final product I delivered to the client.

This is an available light photo of what it looks like without editing.

This is another shot from the shoot. I am mixing flash with ambient light. Many call this Flambient Lighting technique. Take a look at this before the ambient light shot below.

Take a look at the colors in the carpet and furniture. The biggest gain in using flash is getting more accurate colors. When you are shooting these photos for a designer, they want accurate colors. You can be in the ballpark for most residential real estate projects, but it has to be accurate for commercial.

I am working hard to make the photos not look like a flash. You see, putting your flashes in the exact location as all the natural lighting to get similar shadows is impossible.

Many photographers will just shoot all available light and then use multiple exposures and combine those for a HDR photo.

Comparing HDR Ambient vs Flambient

Here is a 5 – Stop HDR photo of the location using just ambient.

This is the Flambient version. I think the colors pop and are more accurate. Also, the lightning on the cabinets in the back is better than the available light.

It takes about 10 – 20 minutes to shoot each photo and about the same amount of time to edit each image. This is one of the reasons why commercial real estate photography costs more. The other reason for the increased cost is that it is widely used for marketing and advertising.

Park Springs Retirement community in DeKalb County, Georgia [DJI Air 2s, Mode = Normal, ISO 120, 1/1250, ƒ/2.8, (35mm = 22)]

Granite quarrying at Stone Mountain, Georgia, was the area’s lifeblood for decades, employing many thousands. The excellent grade of building stone from the mountain was used in many notable structures, including the locks of the Panama Canal, the roof of the bullion depository at Fort Knox, Philadelphia’s Liberty National Building, and the steps in the east wing of the U.S. Capitol.

When selling real estate, it is all about Location, Location, Location. The location they are promoting for the Park Springs retirement community is the proximity to Stone Mountain. The population was 5,802, according to the 2010 US Census. 

Drone photography is the newest Aerial form of photography. As long as you can get your photo from 400 feet or less, this is the best way to capture your property. If you have a massive location needing you to be 500 feet or better in height, you need a helicopter or plane to get those shots.

While showing the Park Springs community near Stone Mountain, this wasn’t the only reason to shoot photos from a drone.

Showing the lake in the middle of the community was also important. From the air, you get a great perspective.

Right next to the property is also a golf course. This is impossible to show from the ground regarding the retirement community.

While I was flying the drone and showing the client the images, they commented that you see how Atlanta is the City of Trees from the air.

 Atlanta, Georgia, has a reputation as the “city in a forest” due to its abundance of trees, uncommon among major cities. Tree coverage was estimated at 47.9% for 2008 in a 2014 study.

Are you using aerial photography to help communicate your location and what surrounds your business? Give me a call, and we can get it done for you.

[DJI Air 2s, Mode = Manual, ISO 100, 1/1000, ƒ/2.8, (35mm = 22)]

Selfie sticks not only let you get more people in a photo, most everyone like the slightly higher perspective. Take this principle to a property, and you understand why you would like to use an aerial photo of your location.

In Real Estate, aerial photos help you get a perspective of the location of a property and what is around it.

In 2014, I rented a Helicopter to photograph a private high school. That was $600 for an hour. The client then paid for my time on top of that photo shoot.

It took more time waiting on the helicopter and getting in the air than getting my drone up.

Sometimes, the property on the ground will require you to fly more than 400 feet above the earth. In those cases, you will still need to hire a helicopter. FAA rules keep drones 400 feet above the ground or a building. There is a 100 feet buffer between the drone limit and the rest of the airspace for manned aircraft that cannot fly below 500 feet unless they are landing.

The advantage of having a drone capture images from the Bird’s Eye Perspective is they don’t need to be extremely high above the ground. You need to be just above the property to get a good perspective.

Keeping your drone flights safe and legal is another part of the “flying smart” equation. Always do your research and due diligence to know and comply with local and federal laws. Before taking to the sky, an FAA Part 107 certified pilot will run through a quick safety checklist and ensure that the aircraft is in tiptop working shape.

Aerial photography is the perfect way to show off the surrounding environment around your property. Why? Because the location is everything. And in many industries, location sells. 

Photo of me with my daughter Chelle and her cat Salem. Chelle took this with her phone on a timer.

So much of our identity is fused with our jobs, function, and company. That isn’t all that bad.

Ephesians 2:10, NIV: "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Early in my career, I was paying the dues working at The Hickory Daily Record, honing my craft of visual storytelling through the skill of photojournalism.

In life, we put a lot of emphasis on dates, periods, and milestone anniversaries. We often tell our stories as a timeline. After a while, you will learn to see a theme in those milestones. For me, those milestones included learning to listen to people and hear their stories firsthand and then helping to tell those stories using impactful visuals with words.

I quickly turned my storytelling to my faith. I worked on the church’s most successful magazine during the 1980s, The Commission Magazine. It told the story of international missionaries for the Baptist. However, by the end of that decade, controversy in the denomination impacted giving, and I lost my job through a layoff.

I went back to school for my master’s in communication from a seminary. I believed that this would help me become a specialist in humanitarian work. Well, I graduated, and the only job I could find was to work at Georgia Tech.

I told the stories of researchers, athletes, administrators, and more for ten years at Georgia Tech. I lost that job.

There were seasons when I was helping a particular genre of people’s stories. It helped me develop skills such as lighting, cross-cultural understanding, and learning to listen better and better. I am still learning how to listen even better. I think that will be a lifetime lesson.

I never stopped telling missionary stories, which morphed into telling humanitarian stories. Humanitarian work promotes human welfare and social reforms. The goal is to save lives, relieve suffering, and maintain human dignity.

I was helping tell the story of migrant workers who wanted to stay in Mexico. They could if only they could cut out the middle man [the roaster] and form a cooperative of coffee growers. That story helped the cooperative grow and more coffee growers to join and change their community.

The president of Honduras came to the US to thank the organization and all they have done to improve their country.

I was trying to survive by shooting anything, covering the Peach Bowl in 2008. Greg Thompson met my wife Dorie in the press box during that game. He was shooting the game with his son. My wife gave him my card and told him to look me up on the sidelines. He didn’t meet me then, but he went to my website and shortly after asked me to help him as a consultant with Chick-fil-A’s corporate communications team.

For the next twelve years, I worked on that team and worked a great deal with the family.

In March of 2020, I found myself sitting at home was, needless to say, a very unusual feeling. The pandemic had shifted my career as much as any other job change had done in the past.

I believe God gave me the gift to help tell people’s stories better than they could without my help.

I studied and got my FAA Part 107 Certified Commercial Drone Pilot license. I started helping Chick-fil-A, real estate people, and businesses use this new perspective to engage their audience. It was another arrow in my quiver.

I have always done headshots for actors, business people, and many counselors.

Dubbed “the new handshake,” professional headshots are now the first introduction to you, your business, and your brand—shouldn’t that intro be the best it can be? With 93% of HR professionals and recruiters tapping into LinkedIn to find quality candidates—plus candidates—plus 2 in 3 on Facebook and more than half utilizing Twitter—that headshot has countless applications in your professional life.

What have I discovered?

The issue was that I needed to sit with myself. With my thoughts. My emotions. My feelings. I had to do “the work.”

“The Work” was to understand how I truly feel. To do this justice, you need time. This past year–I had plenty of time. I created a Zoom call group every Friday for the past year. It was due to no longer getting the FOCUS group together in person; why not do it online. [FOCUS – Fellowship of Communicators Uniting Socially]

I learned that I thrived at helping people have the space to share their stories. I found myself coaching people before they were to share. “People want to hear your story,” is what I was telling them over and over. Then I would say to them what I thought was their story. Often they commented how much this process was helping them.

All this time, I thought I was learning how to listen and help people tell their stories so that the audience’s lives would be impacted. Little did I know that this process was cathartic for so many.

My purpose is still to help people and organizations tell their stories in an impactful way. While the audience will be impacted, it is often the subject that is transformed the most.

Tip for You!

Everyone will be enriched by doing the same thing I do. Take the time to listen to a person. Listening is active. You will need to ask questions. You don’t have a list of questions as much as genuinely listening to a person; you will need to ask qualifying questions.

Verify that story when you think you got that person’s story, just like a journalist will do. Tell the person their story as you understand it and ask if you missed anything.

When you listen, you will awaken your own story and learn to connect in new ways with people.