The other day I was processing some of my thoughts with one of my mentors Greg Thompson.

Greg Thompson retired last year from Chick-fil-A, where he was the senior director of corporate communications. Before joining Chick-fil-A, Greg spent 25 years in various global communications management roles for IBM in the U.S. and
Asia, including more than five years living in Tokyo, Japan. Greg joined IBM after a career as a photographer, sports writer, political writer, editor, and bureau chief for three newspapers and The Associated Press.

I was getting frustrated with some people who were not refining the story but instead expanding the story. So, I made a comment that I thought writers were used to being able to make changes up to the last minute. Greg said that in his years of experience, it was not due to being a writer but to being indecisive.

I have been working with our Advanced Storytellers workshop in Nicaragua. The biggest thing we are doing in this workshop is inviting the participants to see how to create a communications plan. The plan is to tell a story that will help a missionary organization.

A lack of process clarity guarantees a slower, more convoluted path to the desired outcome. It would help if you made decisions that will have you focused on compellingly telling a story that invites the audience to join the narrative.

What I watch happen every time with any organization is they want to tell the audience everything they do and, in the process, not only don’t engage the audience but turn them off.

If you step logically through a proven process, you will waste less time and use the right resources at the right time.

Before we even begin to tell a story, we ask the organization what the problem they need to solve is. If we do our job as professional communicators, what will success look like to them?

Once we have this goal, we know our purpose and can decide if something stays or gets cut in our communications.

We are using the hero’s journey as a framework to tell stories. The very first thing we will do is establish a crisis for the main character.

The 2018–2020 Nicaraguan protests began on 18 April 2018 when demonstrators in several cities of Nicaragua started to protest against the social security reforms decreed by President Daniel Ortega that increased taxes and decreased benefits. After five days of unrest in which nearly thirty people were killed, Ortega announced the cancellation of the reforms.

The missionaries we are working with had to leave Nicaragua quickly. Many went to neighboring Costa Rica. When they left Nicaragua, some of their supporters stopped their support of the center they used as a base and redirected those funds to other missionary projects in other countries.

The center defunded in this process has served as a hub of their ministry since they returned. It is like a small college or camp. It has dormitories, a dining area, and classrooms, making it a great place to host groups for all types of training.

We started with their objective and goal, which was to raise financial support of at least $4,000 a month for their operational budget. Even though we had talked through this, some missionaries didn’t understand why we had to start with the protest and them leaving the country, but the audience needed to know quickly why there was a problem. Why are you contacting them and wanting their support?

Too often, missionaries and any organization want to tell people all they are doing. Keeping everything positive but missing the critical part that storytelling does better than a bullet list. When I hear many people speak from nonprofits, I wonder why they need help. They have built wells or built churches. They tell you all their successes and never do a good job of establishing why they need money.

You always start with the crisis in a story. It helps to clarify the objective of the organization. We are trying to solve this problem, and the story invites the audience to join in the main character’s journey.

You can do it faster when you know precisely what you are trying to achieve. Period. I doubt that requires more explanation. Speed comes from greater clarity of purpose and process.

Right from the start, I asked the missionary team about their most significant need. What keeps you up at night and worrying about tomorrow?

If they lose the center where they are doing their ministry, everything will get more complicated, expensive, and even prohibitive in some cases for them to do their work.

Once we knew the priority, we looked for people they had helped through the center in the past to tell their stories. We have many more people like this person to help and need the audience to come along with them and help them accomplish their goal of changing lives for the better.

After some questions, they mentioned this pastor. He was called into the country where some people wanted to start a church. He didn’t know how to do this and needed help. He heard about the missionaries. They told him about their center and their classes.

Out of this church, another crisis for the community started to pop up. The kids didn’t have much to do and just got involved in drugs, and many girls became pregnant as early as 9 or 10 years of age. This led them to start programs for the youth in that community. They had church teams from the US come in and do camp programs during the summer, and the center helped to train the community to create programming for the youth.

Other programs for women who needed a purpose in their lives came through bible studies, teaching them how to reach their neighbors.

We have decided to learn more about these different programs that this pastor’s church has created with the help of the center to tell the story of how this center is helping to change the lives of communities in Nicaragua.

Muddled processes don’t provide much evidence of logic, sound input, fairness, or representation of interests. Confused decision processes create skeptics and cynics, not supporters of those missionaries.

We will have limited time in the country, so we are trying to identify all the characters and as much as possible about their stories before we land in Managua. We have had three video conference calls with the team. The team comprises people from four countries—Togo, West Africa; Columbia, South America; Nicaragua, and the United States.

Next month when we land, we need to have all the interviews lined up and then have time to capture video and photography of these people in their churches, homes, and places of business to tell their stories.

If you get off the plane and nothing is lined up, it is because we were Wishy Washy.

By creating clarity of purpose, process, and roles, people learn to trust the system and let go. Once that happens, they can get back to their top priorities and amp up their ability to focus.

Numerous missionary teams think they are focused but are working on five decisions and two plans simultaneously. And they wonder why they keep going in circles. They haven’t figured out what decision they are making and are trying to make several at once.

How you leave people feeling is always important. Decisions made with clarity produce the best results across the board.

Here is my list that I work through with missionary organizations:

1. What is the #1 priority problem that needs help? What is it that keeps you up at night from sleeping?
2. Is there someone that you have helped that represents what success looks like? This becomes the main character
3. What was their problem that you helped them with?
4. Who on your team helped them? Who was the guide in the story?
5. What was the plan that the guide had for the main character?
6. What was the call to action from the focus to the subject?
7. What does failure look like if the issue isn’t successful?
8. What was the success of the matter?

Due to time constraints and budget, we must stay focused. Sometimes there isn’t a clear choice in this process, but you must pick. Suppose you have to flip a coin. Don’t be Wishy Washy.

If magically I could have any lens on the camera at any moment, I would be switching lenses all the time. If I could do this in the blink of an eye, I would. They would probably all be prime lenses, but often this isn’t very practical.

Since magically switching lenses with a blink of an eye isn’t possible, I decided to take my Sigma 35mm ƒ/1.4 Art lens mounted on my Nikon Z6 and then keep the Nikon 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 on my Nikon D5 as I went through the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden which is just north of Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii.

I think you sometimes will need to read the specs to tell the difference. When shooting the 28-300mm @ 300mm, the compression creates a shallow depth of field even at ƒ/5.6.

Sometimes the shallow depth of field is almost too shallow. So I would shoot some at different apertures and then pick.

I think I like some from both lenses for different reasons. What do you think?

I think that the ƒ/1.4 is a really smooth and silky BOKEH, but the 300mm @ ƒ/5.6 isn’t bad if you didn’t have that one lens.

The more I travel, the more I think if you have to be weight conscious, the Nikon 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 is an excellent lens.

[NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 250, 1/500, ƒ/4, (35mm = 24)]

We often enjoy photographing sunsets and even talk about the Golden Hour of light for photography. The Golden Hour (sometimes called the Magic Hour) is usually defined as the first and last hour of sunlight in the day when the exceptional quality of light yields stunning photographs.

I have found that when it comes to matching the artificial light of buildings within the Golden Hour, it shrinks to just minutes of suitable time for great light.

Now the difference between this photo where the light outside is balancing well with the restaurant’s light was just a few minutes between too much light and too little light from the sun.

The top photo of my wife was shot at 6:32 pm. Right about the time of sunset. This one just above was shot at 6:18 pm.

From my many years of shooting, I have noticed that from the time of actual sunset to when balancing light with artificial lights like here, you have about 15 to 20 minutes tops for good photos. I think there is a 5-minute window for the best pictures.

My favorite shot was done on my Galaxy S10 phone and with a wide-angle lens. That is 13mm, equivalent to the 35mm camera. This is shot at 6:40 pm, 13 minutes after sunset.

By the way, the food and atmosphere of The Fish Hopper in Kona, Hawaii, are excellent. The waitress was one of the best we have ever had. Big shout out to Bridget Kaleki Butler for the recommendation.

The photo above is of Don Senas, Fire Dancer [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 100, 1/320, ƒ/4, (35mm = 75)]

This week I have been teaching how to use studio strobes to help improve one’s photography.

Last night was the only time I have had the class join me for an actual photo shoot that they can watch, take some photos to help remember the occasion, but primarily have the opportunity to watch pros and what they do on a photo shoot using studio strobes to improve the lighting.

My wife Dorie Griggs took a video on her phone of me taking the photos and the students watching. Here is that video:

You can see the strobes off to the side at about 45º from the camera angle.

All those were shot at these settings: [NIKON Z 6, VR Zoom 24-105mm f/4G IF-ED, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 100, 1/160, ƒ/4, (35mm = 24)]

These photos are of Brooke Valle Anderson, a Hawaiian Dancer. She is with Island Breeze. They do luau shows on the Big Island.

Brooke also works with a Hula Keiki (children’s) after-school program where the children learn different dances.

Earlier in the day, I taught the class how to use an off-camera strobe to complement the existing light. Here are some of the shots I did to show them how to do this before they each went and spent the afternoon shooting an assignment to do an environmental portrait and use the flash to improve the photo.

They were to hand in a before and after photo like I am showing here.

I also gave them a PDF for the assignment. Here is a link to that project if you want to try this.

Here are a couple examples I showed them that are “Environmental Portraits”

Here are some that would also work for this assignment from my photo shoot in a Chick-fil-A. All of these also use a strobe to improve the light.

This was the last assignment of my time here on the Big Island of Hawaii, teaching the students in the School of Photography 1 at the University of the Nations. The last assignment they did is the one that I do more than any other lighting setup.

I am adding just one light off the camera to help light a person’s face to help draw the audience to them quickly in a photo.

“If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff.”

Jim Richardson

Settings for photo above: [NIKON Z 6, 24.0-105.0 mm f/4.0, Mode = Manual, ISO 100, 1/6, ƒ/9, (35mm = 24)]

I shoot a lot in restaurants. The hardest part of these photo shoots is that there are four walls, and three are all glass. Just the front counter isn’t backlit during the daytime hours.

I love to hang strobes from the drop ceilings using a bracket.

I just used the Flashpoint XPLOR 600 HSS TTL Battery-Powered Monolight as a bare bulb and pointed the light straight up.

That lets me keep the outside windows from being blown out in the background and gives me great light on people’s faces most of the time.

The light from the window is lighting the employee, and the strobe in the ceiling is lighting the customer in this photo.

The other great thing about using this setup is that the strobes are battery-powered, so there are no cords. I am adjusting the power with the Godox X1T-N TTL Wireless Flash Trigger Transmitter.

I could change the lights’ power even though they were mounted on the ceiling away from the camera. I first check to see what the existing light settings would be and then set the camera to use that ISO and settings so that the flash is just cleaning up the light and where there are shadows [like the man’s face would have been] are no longer silhouettes.

Now to get the photo like the one here and the very top photo, I just slowed the shutter speed to 1/6 and cranked the aperture up to ƒ/9 and ISO 100. As I mentioned, the flash is on the ceiling, and since it is TTL, it just popped in to get a clean light on the face, and then my panning blurred the rest of the photo.

Just getting the flash off the camera is my best tip. Try mounting the moment to the ceiling rather than on a light stand.

Try some experimenting. You don’t always shoot the lowest ISO and at the flash sync speed when shooting with the Flashpoint XPLOR 600 HSS TTL Battery-Powered Monolight.

If you don’t have a good headshot, you need one in today’s business world. For actors they need them for all the shows they are in. For the average person you need one as part of your resume, which many use LinkedIn as the way to deliver a resume.

I have steered away from picture backgrounds because they can look fake. However, recently more and more people want photos outside on location.

So while the traditional solid background works for inside portraits, outside portraits on weather-challenging days are challenging to do with your model.

So this is the setup I used to do actor headshots at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia.

Before I shot the models with it on location, I did some testing in my house.

I tried a few lighting setups. I went with the Pall Buff 86” Soft Silver PLM™ Umbrella. It produces a steady, feathered falloff with very soft shadows.

I had two setups. One with an extensive white muslin background that I could make grey or white depending on the light I put on the background.

My wife took a video when I was shooting my daughter in the brick background.

Here are some of those photos:

I did less coaching with Chelle since she had done this many times before and needed no real direction. For others doing this for the first time, I did more instruction.

I shot with my Nikon Z6 with the focus setting on AF-S and Auto Area with the AF face/eye detection turned on. Using the Nikon ViewNX-i software will let you see where you were focused when the photo was taken, as you can see here. This is great for troubleshooting your focus.

I find that actors/models love the freedom to try new expressions and experiment.

This was the setup I finally used after experimenting.

Organist in the Roswell Presbyterian Historic Sanctuary for the 8:15 am Worship service. [NIKON Z 6, 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 2200, 1/200, ƒ/4, (35mm = 28)]

Today I photographed three different worship services at my church using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless camera. I arrived early and knew I had to shoot without a flash, but I wanted to see if I could shoot with the silent shutter.

So I switched the camera to silent mode. Here are the instructions from the camera manual.

After setting the camera to silent mode, I took a picture of the plain wall and got banding, as you can see. So I couldn’t shoot in silent mode. But, the Nikon Z6 is still much quieter than the DSLR.

I was shooting wide-open apertures most of the time. I had the Auto ISO set to @ 1/200 for shutter speed.

In the historic sanctuary, it was pretty dark. For the most part, I was shooting ISO 2200 on the balcony with the organist. A fluorescent light directly over her kept the ISO lowest in the room. In the pews, ISO 22800 is in the middle of the room. I was able to shoot as low as ISO 8000 by the windows.

After the first service, I captured the minister talking to the people outside.

So for the first service, I shot everything with the Nikon 28-300mm ƒ/3.5–5.6. It worked just fine.

With Auto ISO set, go to ISO 51200. I found the shutter speed was dropping to 1/15 at ISO 51200. I ran to my car and got my 85mm ƒ/1.8 and 35mm ƒ/1.4. Even with those fast lenses, the light in the Contemporary Worship service was dismal. I was in a gym using mood lighting. It was dark.

I was still at ISO 51200, but at ƒ/1.8, I could have a shutter speed of 1/125 when photographing the people in the congregation.

I was dropping some room parts to 1/30, ƒ/1.8 @ ISO 51200.

With the 35mm ƒ/1.4, I was wide open at ISO 51200 and shooting 1/30.

There was no way to photograph people in a dark room like this with a zoom lens. So I needed the fastest prime lenses I owned.

The last service was in the brightest room. I could pull out that 28-300mm, zoom in, and capture these two friends enjoying worship together. I love my Nikon Z6 because it lets me focus on moments and people. I had to think and be sure I had the right lens on the camera, but the technology let me capture the moments that will help my church show they are a place where people can be themselves and feel welcomed and bring anyone they know to worship with them.

Savanna Sturkie, a 2017 graduate, is being interviewed by Mark Johnson on Photo Night @ The Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communications, University of Georgia. [NIKON Z 6, 24.0-105.0 mm f/4.0, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 25600, 1/200, ƒ/4, (35mm = 32)]

The point of Photo Night is to help learn from photographers. Sturkie graduated from UGA in 2017 and worked as an intern for Food & Wine Magazine in Birmingham, Alabama. She wanted to be a food photographer.

Sturkie was asked how she changed from a full-time job to a freelance. She first explained she was on track for editing and not shooting in her position with Food & Wine Magazine.

She said she doesn’t recommend doing what she did for the transition. Most people, she said, work part-time while building their freelance. She was just so unhappy with her trajectory and needed a change.

She quit and moved to Atlanta, Georgia, from Birmingham, Alabama.

“I emailed relentlessly photographers that I wanted to work with or learn from,” said Sturkie.

Three things she recommends

• Get Coffee with photographers
• Photo Assisting
• 2nd Shooter

Getting coffee with photographers was a way to learn. She said that she never got a chance to work with one particular photographer she had coffee with, but what she learned during that coffee time was some of the most valuable information.

Coffee Time

• Listen – This is the most important thing to do when you have coffee.
• What can I learn from this photographer? It would help if you were focused on realizing you are starting and they are further ahead of you.
• Develop the relationship – The industry is small, and you need a network of people to make it. They may hire you, refer you or be a resource.

Photo Assisting

While you have some skills, you can learn so much by just watching another seasoned photographer. You also get to make some money when assisting. This is doing whatever they need when they are on the job. You may be getting lenses for them. Helping carry gear and setting up is also part of the job. The key is to be willing to do just about anything to lessen the load on the photographer.

2nd Shooter

80% of Sturkie’s work is weddings. When she first helped in assisting, she hated it. She helped a photographer with a style that didn’t feel good, and the lady wasn’t pleasant at all to work with.

She did find other photographers doing a photojournalistic wedding style. By being a second shooter she was getting to shoot, but also learn about the business of weddings.

Today

Sturkie is now doing food photography, weddings, and other photo projects as they come up.

Personal Projects

Sturkie also said that you must create your project to keep that creative fire going. The photo above is one of her projects. She wanted to do a 1960s fashion shoot. She paid to get all the clothes and had a studio space for the photo shoot.

Sturkie said, “You need to self-assign.”

While Mark Johnson was interviewing Dave Labelle during Photo Night @ The Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communications, University of Georgia, he joked that this might sound like, “Get off my lawn.”

He was addressing that veteran photojournalist and talking mainly to a room full of college students.

“What would you say is the purpose of photojournalism today?” asked Mark Johnson of Labelle.

Labelle said, “Humans are still the same.” He explained that while the technology to tell stories has evolved, storytelling has always been here. “Visual storytelling has also always been here, ” Labelle said. Storytellers had always used words to paint pictures, even before there were visuals.

Labelle said that with technology as advanced as it has become today, “The Glory Years are now.”

Photo Night was a concept started by Billy Weeks.

The format is where a photographer is interviewed and brings just three images they want to discuss. Many photographers often ramble, and this format works great. Billy and now Mark can help steer the conversation to the nuggets of wisdom the audience will benefit from the most.

Here are some of the tidbits that I considered gems from Dave Labelle worth sharing with you.

Labelle said to the students, “You are acquiring skills now from your classes for a job in the future you don’t even know about.”

“Calm seas never made a sea captain.” He said that if you have a lot of privilege, you don’t learn as much as when you struggle in life experiences.

I asked Labelle if there was a reason they could see the story before they talked to people? He said that he grew up with a father who got angry and would go into rages. He said his wife thinks that his background made him good at reading people and situations from a pure survival mode.

Mark Johnson asked Labelle, “How do you help today’s generation look up and out from their phones?”

“I’m a hugger,” was Labelle’s response. He said he needed to engage with people. The power of human touch is what moves his soul. He said he is never bored because he loves meeting people.

Sharing these stories of people he finds with others is his way of giving hope to people. Hearing and seeing people overcome struggles is his way of showing the world a sense of hope to provide them with purpose.

I see many photographers who play the victim or the villain in their own lives.

They have a client that picks another photographer for a job, which sends them into a tailspin. “Woe is me” is what you hear them saying in one way or another.

Anyone can see there is a reason to be upset, but you cannot be successful living with this mindset. The problem is you are not addressing the anger you feel.

People who feel victimized tend to view events in their lives as happening to them and feel ineffective and overwhelmed. They also operate on the basic assumption that the world should be fair, a child’s way of thinking. You can learn to deal with this in a much more productive way.

You must understand that anger is a simple, irrational emotional response to frustration.

When we examine the loss of a job to another photographer, we often think that the client “should” use us. We believe there is some sense of obligation of them to us.

I started this blog with a picture of the forest, but what we see in the image above. Something within the forest. Often it is just a tree or even a flower.

I think it is essential for you to give up a sense of entitlement and to recognize that you do not inherently deserve to receive anything in the way of good treatment from others.

Too many photographers will talk badly about other photographers. This is often done by those who feel like a victim and now are acting as a villain. They have turned that anger into putting down others to make themselves look better.

Putting those around you down alienates people and drives them away from you. You are now negative energy. Creatives don’t thrive in this environment and will most likely distance themselves from you.

If you have watched professional ice skating competitions, you have seen failure. It is often just one small mistake, but that means they go home without a medal that day.

Skaters will analyze their performance over and over. They will work with a coach to help them nail it next time.

After losing a job, my first go to do just like skaters and look for where I failed.

Today I realize that this is often not the only thing we should be doing.

We need to think of things from a higher perspective. It would be best if you thought of this from the client’s perspective.

Sometimes you may lose the job because:

• They have a friend who is a photographer
• They have been asked to try a new approach
• Someone offered to do it for free
• They want to see what someone else can do for them
• They want some variety
• A new person is now doing the hiring
  • They hire their friends
  • They have a photographer they worked with in the past
• A person in the company has someone they recommended they use, and that person is someone with political power

Wakeup Call

• Let this be something to make you try new things.
• Ask yourself, on the last job, was I listening to the client
• Go and produce some new work to send to that client
• Work on updating your portfolio
• There are seasons with clients, and maybe the season has changed
• Time to market yourself and find more clients

The Hero in a story faces challenges. It is a moving story when the hero must go into a burning building and get someone out. It isn’t interesting as a story if they take the elevator to the 2nd floor, meet someone, and go to lunch.

Heroes in stories face challenges and overcome them.

Play the Hero. Remind yourself that this is a hiccup, and you need to embrace it and learn from it. Find a way that this can make you a better person and not a bitter person.

Be the Hero of your story and not the victim or the villain.

Professional headshots are not just for actresses and models. Every person in business needs a professional headshot.

A first impression is what a person thinks of you when they first meet you. It is the feeling they get or the initial evaluation that a person does of you when they first meet you. It can be done during a glance, in conversation, or even from a distance when someone looks at your body language.

People will judge you as a warm or cold personality very quickly. They also will evaluate your competency in how you present yourself.

Your headshot makes you real in the virtual world. Yet some people continue to leave their headshot blank on places like LinkedIn, or they don’t take it seriously when they do upload one. 

• Don’t use a selfie. Using a lousy headshot, you are making your first impression suffer.
• Don’t use images where you’ve cropped others out of the frame; it’s weird.
• Don’t use images with multiple people in the photo. 
• Don’t leave it blank – this makes you less accurate and more suspicious in the virtual world.

Your headshot should be just as polished as all your marketing materials if you want to leave that great first impression that portrays you as the sharp and competent expert you are.

As part of your branding, a photo of you that communicates your professionalism and approachability improves your messaging.

If your current LinkedIn headshot is from 10 years ago, it’s time to upgrade.

Believe it or not, a professional headshot can be quick and painless. If you work with your photographer to plan out all the details, it should take no time at all to capture the perfect headshot.