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.

photo by Don Rutledge

Memories are essential in our lives because they allow us to grow and learn to be a better person. Our recollections can teach us necessary life lessons, demonstrate skills and abilities, and can make us feel happy and entertained. 

By having memories, we will know what is right and wrong. We can remember where we made our mistakes and learn from them.

We have birthdays as a way to celebrate and remember the year that has past and the clean slate we have going forward.

Wedding anniversaries are where we gather with our friends who helped us in our journey. We can celebrate because our friends and family helped us through those moments where it was difficult and also the times that we observed.

I loved that at Chick-fil-A corporate offices, they celebrate work anniversaries. Every five years, they celebrate. On your 20th anniversary, there is a big party thrown by your department. One of those traditions is getting a cartoon drawn of you and surrounding you are things you are known for contributing to the brand.

My mentor, Don Rutledge, helped me understand how important photography is to humanity. It helps capture moments and tells stories. Sometimes we need to be sure we capture our own stories and families.

Maybe when you were in school, your English teacher assigned you to read “Black Like Me.” My mentor Don Rutledge traveled with the author John Howard Griffin in 1955 as he did his research for his book. He photographed him when he took drugs and, using makeup, transformed himself from a white man to a black man to be able to write about what it was like to live as a black man in the south.

I did my master thesis on Don Rutledge. If you want to read it, here are the links to the chapters of the book:

• Master’s Thesis on Don Rutledge: Chapter One
• Master’s Thesis on Don Rutledge: Chapter Two
• Master’s Thesis on Don Rutledge: Chapter Three
• Master’s Thesis on Don Rutledge: Chapter Four
• Master’s Thesis on Don Rutledge: Conclusion

I gave a copy to Don. Just before Don retired, he had mini strokes affecting his memory. After retiring, he had a few powerful strokes and couldn’t remember much. When I would call to talk to Don, he told me how much he appreciated my work in telling his story. He was reading it repeatedly to help him feel good about his life but couldn’t remember. Here is an article I wrote for NPPA News Magazine.

Now while you might not be photographing or creating videos of content that goes onto a newspaper, you are recording history. Sometimes the most critical documentation is that of your family and friends. I have been doing this for our family.

Here are examples of photos of my daughter through the years

We all need to remember our past, the good and the bad. We celebrate not just the good times but also that we pushed through and overcame adversity.

Remember, if you are a leader, you celebrate those who work for you. Celebrate those work anniversaries. Remember to tell those stories of how your people overcame obstacles and grew and helped your team succeed.

I believe one of the best ways you can celebrate is by using photos and videos to play back some of those memories. Sometimes for us to “Seize the Day,” we need to remember we did it before.

When taking photos with the drone, I noticed there wasn’t enough dynamic range in the RAW files. The cool thing is you can take 3 to 5 bracketed photos with the DJI Fly More APP.

Using Adobe Lightroom or PhotoShop, you can let the software do an auto-merge, or in PhotoShop; you can put them in layers and do a custom blend.

By shooting RAW with AEB set to 5, I have five different exposures to pick from rather than constantly merging multiple ones into a photo.

Often I am just picking the best exposure and tweak that photo.

Anytime you have something moving in the frame, you need to do a custom merge or pick the best exposure. So I decided on the best exposure and edited it in Lightroom for the photo of these Brown Pelicans flying in the picture.

Sunset is a great reason to use the Auto Exposure Bracket [AEB] to hold such a wide dynamic range together.

Anytime you shoot and can shoot various exposures, you give yourself many more options in the editing.

Not For Decisive Moment

Shooting people or moving objects trying to shoot a bracket and get the best peak moment isn’t realistic. Instead, shoot RAW in these types of situations. However, it is a good idea to shoot a bracket of exposures to then pick the best exposure that you will use when in a condition for shooting people.

The photo above is a mixture of Ambient Lighting and Flash Lighting––Many call this Flambient

The “flambient” method combines both flash and ambient light in shots. It is one of the fastest-growing techniques for shooting real estate images. … On the other hand, shooting using pure flash can result in an image that looks fake, with shadows pointing towards the windows instead of away.

Here is just the Ambient of the photo above.

While it takes time to do this compared to just shooting one shot, it is even better than HDR without flash. You tend to get more accurate colors.

Now here is the before with just ambient.

Here is one more example from a room I did for a client.

Now notice the color of the fabric and the windows, as well as the kitchen, which is far from the window light is dark in the ambient photo.

I love the Flambient approach to real estate.

[DJI Air 2S, 22.4 mm f/2.8, Mode = Manual, ISO 840, 1/8, ƒ/2.8, (35mm = 22)]

I believe one of the best times of day to take photos outside is Twilight. Compare this top photo to this one from a different time of day.

This can be summed up as the difference between everything in the photo getting the same amount of light or, like a spotlight on the stage when you light just some of the scene is more appealing.

Again another Drone shot from a different perspective and different time of day to compare.

Another difference is the type of light during the day also can make a difference. This one below is with tiny clouds. The one above it is with cloudy conditions.

My suggestion is whenever you can take pictures at twilight.

The FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate tests for understanding hazardous attitudes. They have a list of five:

• Macho – “Let me show you what I can do!”
  • Antidote – Taking chances is foolish.
• Impulsivity – “Do it quickly!”
  • Antidote – Not so fast. Think first.
• Invulnerability – It won’t happen to me.”
  • Antidote – It could happen to me.
• Resignation – “What’s the use?”
  • Antidote – I am not helpless. I can make a difference.
• Anti-Authority – “Don’t tell me what to do!”
  • Antidote – Follow the rules. They are usually right.

Some will rail against rules being an affront to our freedom and argue that they’re “there to be broken.”

Yes, some rules are unjustified. Someone gets in power and doesn’t like something, and then since they sit on the city council, create a new ordinance or law because they don’t like something their neighbor is doing.

Rules are the essence of sport, games, and puzzles – even when their entire purpose is supposedly fun. But haven’t you seen a fan lose it when their team is called off-sides.

I teach many workshops worldwide, and the organization I work with starts each workshop by going over some ground rules. At the end of going over each direction, the leader said, “Please don’t do anything that makes us create a new rule.”

I think we would want to encourage everyone to learn the rules so that we can all enjoy flying our drones for commercial and personal enjoyment without having someone create a problem that needs a new direction.

Rules, like good policing, rely on our consent. And those that don’t have our permission can become the instruments of tyranny. So perhaps the best advice is to follow the rules, but always to ask why. Learn why a law was created.

I learned a lot this past year when I jumped onto the Drone Bandwagon. Most of the rules the FAA has created make it safer for all of us. In addition, it helps all of us enjoy this as a hobby and as a profession.

Buttigieg visits Georgia to promote the Administrations scaled-back infrastructure plan
[NIKON Z 6, 24.0-105.0 mm f/4.0, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 100, 1/400, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 24)]

I had the privilege to cover Pete Buttigieg, The Secretary for the Department of Transportation, visiting Atlanta, Georgia. There were so many government representatives meeting with him. A few names were Senator Jon Ossoff, Senator Raphael Warnock, U.S. Rep Nikema Williams, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, and many others.

Challenge & Solution

The digital media guy for the Department of Transportation asked me to send him photos that he could put up on social media throughout the day. Here are just three of the many challenges I was faced with on that day.

• Packed Shooting Schedule
• No Time to ingest into laptop & edit images
• Anything I would send would have to go unedited

The solution for me was to use the Nikon APP SnapBridge. While it can do a great deal, I used the Bluetooth connection for my answer.

I could shoot RAW with my Nikon Z6 and have the camera download every image I took as a 1620×1080 jpeg to my phone or chose which ones. I started by downloading it all automatically; even when I turned the camera off, it continued to transmit to my phone.

In many of these situations, I realized that I would normally edit a RAW file to get better skin tones––But NO TIME. So I decided to use more fill-flash than I ever do on a job these days.

There were many situations throughout the day where Secretary Pete Buttigieg was often backlighted with very little light in front of his face. This is one example. It would have been a disaster if I sent that to the client to post.

Back in the days of shooting film, this is how I had to shoot chrome film. In a film like Kodachrome & Fuji Provia, you had to get exposure to the camera.

While I didn’t turn the flash on all the time, I was very keenly aware when I needed it.

In this scenario, Secretary Pete Buttigieg is wearing a hat and walking in a tunnel with light at the very end. While there were lights on the wall, as he walked, he went from good morning to backlit over and over. Waiting for the best lighting moment does not work well with the best moment capturing what is going on. Using the flash helped immensely with this situation.

See how many photos you can recognize that I used the flash. You might be surprised that some I didn’t use it.

So do you think you could shoot and transmit photos on an assignment with no chance to edit?

I know I wasn’t so sure. So the days before the shoot, I practiced doing this throughout the whole process. The DOT gave me a Google Drive Folder to upload my images. We tested it together the day before. This not only calmed my anxiety but the client’s as well.

“Thank you all for the amazing work. Stanley, your photos are phenomenal. Can’t wait to see the rest!”

DOT Social Media Manager

I got that at the end of the shooting that day and before I had then gone home and processed all the RAW files from my three Nikons. I was using Nikon D5 w/ 14-24mm ƒ/2.8, Nikon D5 w/ 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 & Nikon Z6 w/ Sigma 24-105mm ƒ/4 Art lens.

Here is one of the Twitter Feeds from the DOT that day with my photos:

Thank you, Georgia, for the warm welcome and for the communities that are setting an example for what we can achieve by investing in equitable infrastructure. Hope to be back soon. pic.twitter.com/WvSzIrQJIE

— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) May 21, 2021

I will not say that today’s cell phone cameras are no match for a regular camera; that isn’t true.

When you take photos outside in the daytime, all cell phone cameras do a great job.

My DJI Mavic Air 2 has a Sony IMX586 48MP sensor also used in the Galaxy S10 phone. So these phones do a pretty good job.

So one of our friends took their phone this past weekend and had me take the picture. They had the benefit of having both and choosing what to use. Here are those two photos:

Then here is my photo using off-camera flashes.

The cell phone is acceptable until you see the difference using flash. All cameras do a better job of reproducing colors under flash than you get under other light sources like fluorescent.

Besides a better color, the noise is a problem when shooting in low light with a cell phone. Using the flash, I am shooting light equivalent to the sunshine outside. I can shoot at ISO 100 and fast shutter speed as well.

Dorie also took photos to show my setup so I could see her settings for the camera.

Now there is one more difference worth pointing out. When professional photographers set up using flashes, they put the lights usually at 45º to the right or left of the camera. Then they also put the light about 45º above the person’s eyes.

The lights in the ceiling are directly over their heads and create what I call “raccoon eyes.” These are the shadows around the eyes.

Here are the benefits that all the people who paid me to take their photos in the Ring at the Citadel:

• Full Spectrum Color Light
• Lower ISO ~ less noise
• Better light direction on faces
• 24-megapixel images so they can get large prints made

While you can get your cell phone pictures, there are times when it is worth going for quality rather than good enough.