The client will enjoy seeing choices when you get hired to shoot an environmental portrait. Having options is even more important for designers.

Some of the variations you give to the client are only you moving to the left or right to compose the photo from a slightly different angle.

For this environmental portrait, I want to show the subject works at Chick-fil-A corporate headquarters in Atlanta, GA. So I am using this logo to help establish his employer.

When using a wide-angle lens like the Nikon 14-24mm ƒ/2.8 lens, you can do portraits with the lens, but you want to keep the face closer to the center than to the edges. Here you can see the hands a slightly distorted when they are on the photo’s edges.

What I like the most about the wide-angle lens is it brings the audience into the scene and gives you a more intimate look.

This photo was taken with the Nikon 85mm ƒ/1.4 lens. In this photo, I am shooting at ƒ/1.4 aperture. Now while it pops the subject out from the background, I am starting to lose the logo, which helps to establish the workplace.

I liked the effect of popping the subject out from the background, but I wouldn’t say I wanted the logo to be so blurred. I then closed the aperture down slightly to ƒ/2.8. Again, I like this the best of these two options.

Before you shoot–TEST.

Your subject will most likely not have the time for you to take all day running around trying different locations. The best thing to do is have an assistant or ask for a volunteer to stand in for your test shots. Work out your lighting with them. Find all the locations before the subject shows up.

I had an assistant stand in for the subject, and we worked on locations together. I would shoot and show the assistant and ask for his feedback. Sometimes you miss something, and having another set of eyes will help you catch any distractions.

Here are some of the test shots I did about an hour before the subject met me.

Time and time again, the most consistent comment I get about my photography is my ability to capture the moment that tells a story.

The second thing that started to help define my work was my ability to use light to improve moments.

My photos defined what I could do for clients.

I was photographing things like lasers you cannot see with the naked eye, but I was capturing this in photos.

I continued to grow and try new technology to solve the problems of clients trying to connect with their audiences. For example, I added 360º panoramic interactive pieces for the clients to put on their websites.

I then started to add just audio to slide shows that were easy to host on almost any website and more economical to produce over traditional video.

I added video and mixed this with still images to help an audience connect to the subject and feel the story.

Am I just a “photographer” anymore? I am a problem solver. I am at the core of what I do, an expert on understanding an audience and the subject and figuring out creative storytelling to connect the two.

When potential clients get to see what I do, they hire me. The trick is to lead with visual examples. I want to be “Remarkable,” and to do this; I must spread ideas. To understand what that means, watch this TED Talk by Seth Godin.

Maybe I need to tell people I am a “Communications Handyman” who is there to solve your problems. I not only can come in and diagnose your communications crisis and understand the pain, but I can also fix it.

The downside to “Communications Handyman” is that it sounds like you will fix your problems the cheapest way.

Maybe I could use “Special Forces Communications Operative,” but you may think I do war photography.

While I have picked for now “Visual Storyteller,” people want to jump and then say so you are a photographer.

Maybe I take a risk, target an audience to serve, and find a title that works with that audience. Maybe with my seminary degree, I will go after the religious market and call myself a “Visual Evangelist” or “The Visual Preacher.”

Successful Communication has four components.

1. Audience
2. Communicator [photographer]
3. Medium
4. Subject

Addressing all of these is necessary for success. Unfortunately, too many photographers often forget one or more of these. They can get caught up in the medium [gear head] or usually emotionally wrapped up in the subject with all their time. Your purpose is to connect the audience and the subject and get yourself out of the way. Now use this same model to address your marketing to an audience. Again, you are the subject, and the audience is your potential customers. Now let’s go back to those four elements again. So often, a photographer is wrapped up in the subject and forgets about that audience. 

So you are shooting a picture for publications geared to women in their 40s and 50s, and you go and shoot a Punk Rock Band. How you cover it shows either you understand your audience or you do not.

So taking the photo above shows my emphasis on subject and medium. Using lights to create just an excellent image.

Here is another example that I have taken a fantastic photo of.

I am showing how popular they are, but am I connecting with my audience? For example, why would middle age women be interested in the bands?

But then I took this photo and now have my hook for the audience. My wife loved this photo so much that she used it as her profile photo on Facebook. The story for the publication audience is how these bands, who can look scary and make you wonder if your child should be near them is to explain why they appeal to your children. This is of interest to the audience. I would lead with this photo before leading with excellent photos because this connects to the audience.

You the Subject

If the professional team were to work with you and help you be more successful, then you become the subject, but who is your audience? Too many photographers again fall in love with the medium. I like taking pictures.

Two Approaches to be Big Fish in a Small Pond

Move. Let’s say you are a wedding photographer in Atlanta, Georgia. It would be easier for you to find another city to move to. Atlanta may have as many as a thousand or more wedding photographers. Maybe you look for a place where the number of photographers per population is lower.

Specialize. It is better to find a subject where few photographers if any, are providing services. Mark Johnson, the head of the photojournalism program at the University of Georgia, told me about one of his students that double majored in photojournalism and horticulture. They went to a horticulture company and sold them why they needed to bring them on board to be their communication specialist. Now that company has a better website showing their product to their audience.

The formula for success is simple. First, you have a subject and an audience in mind. It would help if you had ideas worth spreading in this arena. So go out there and be remarkable.

Pros don’t spot pros due to gear; they spot them due to work habits when shooting.

One year, I was covering a workshop for college students in Nashville, TN, when I walked into a theater; everyone in the class was down the front, and the teachers were sitting on the edge of the stage. So after shooting a few photos around the show, I went up on stage behind the teachers to get a good shot of the students listening to the instructors.

Just as I did that, the entire class broke up laughing. Talk about an awkward moment for me, but quickly Anacleto Rapping, one of the teachers, let me in on the laughter. He had noticed I was covering the meeting and was teaching these photography students that if they just waited, Stanley would come up on stage and take some photos.

My walking on stage to take photos in that situation would be very typical for a photographer doing reportage on the event.

When I teach students, I am teaching actions that will give specific results if they do. Put light and the subject here, and you will get a unique look.

What is critical to understand is while the results will vary from each photographer, most all successful photographers will fully explore a subject. They will move around the object and, due to physical limitations, will most likely avoid similar photos.

Photo by Dorie Griggs

How a photographer holds the camera is often a giveaway that they know what they are doing.

Would a professional photographer acknowledge that you are a fellow pro or a ranked amateur just by watching you work?

Most all professionals will not conclude that because of how you shoot, you are a great photographer; what they are completing is that from your actions alone, they would approach it similarly.

I can spot a pro even when they are using a point-and-shoot. Can you?

A few blogs earlier, I discussed the importance of picking a good subject. Here is a link to that blog. Once you have your subject, construct an outline of how you would tell the story. Here are some photos from my last coverage of Mexico’s coffee farmers’ cooperative. I am going back to do more stories on them in November. 

As the coffee growers brought in groups from churches and civic groups to see how their cooperative was doing, that helped them add water filtration for their communities from the profits.

Take these categories if you need to as a starting place and fill in for each of these things you would shoot.

1. Opener: Sets the scene for the story
2. Decisive moment: The one moment that can by itself tell the story
3. Details: Besides being like visual candy to the report, help often with transitions–especially in multimedia packages
4. Sequences: give a little variety to a situation
5. High overall shot: Gives a good perspective on how the elements all fit together.
6. Closer: Besides the classic shot of the cowboy riding off into the sunset, there are other visual ways to help bring the story to a close
7. Portraits: These photos are great for introducing the characters of the story

Because I had a list of things that coffee farmers’ families benefited from when I saw this moment of the kids taking their projects to school, and the joy on this girl’s face let me know I could check this off the list.

These are from a story I did on coffee farmers in Mexico that formed a cooperative. Before the cooperative, they made so little money many of them were crossing the border as illegal immigrants so they could work to earn enough to feed their families, which usually stayed behind. 

Part of the process of coffee is spreading it out on concrete slabs and letting it dry. No need to shoot this over and over; I had it.

I needed to tell two stories. First, about how the coffee the cooperative grows is the finest Arabica. I also needed to tell the story that after joining the joint, the lives of the farmers and their families improved. 

I am working on the story of the cooperative coffee farmers in Mexico when one night, we go and enjoy a meal with some of the coffee farmers’ wives. They have formed a cooperative and run a take-out restaurant. While the photo isn’t stellar, the concept of the joint moving beyond just coffee shows the power of creating a cooperative.

As you are there, one day, this incredible moment happens that you had not planned for or even knew happened. You make a portfolio shot even. You add this to the package. In the end, putting your total package together might cut, and it might not. You can go off script, but the writing helps you tell the story. You may even change up the outline as you are shooting. The system helps you start and navigate the story better than getting up in the morning, grabbing your camera, and just waiting for something to happen so you can capture it.

Here is a brief outline of what I had before shooting the story on the coffee cooperative.

1. Showing the coffee on the plant and being harvested
2. Removal of what is left of the fruit from the bean
3. Drying coffee on slabs of concrete
4. Roasting the coffee
5. Bagging the coffee and grinding the coffee
6. Coffee farmers working in each of those settings
7. Coffee farmers in their homes
8. The families and what they do (mainly to show before and after)
9. Show how dangerous crossing the border is for a person
   1. Showing them remembering all those who died crossing
   2. Showing putting water in the desert for crossers
   3. Maybe show some in the desert waiting to cross in darkness
10. Show what happens when border patrol finds them

Without a list, you may spend 80% of your time just growing the coffee, but by having a list, you can divide your time and have a storyline that will come together.

Talking of bad photographers, I have often heard it said that one of their characteristics is that they look at their contacts in order to discover which is the best picture, whereas a good photographer examines each frame on a contact sheet and asks: why is this one not a good picture?

[Jay, Bill; Hurn, David (1997-10-01). On Being a Photographer]

I am reading the book On Being a Photographer. You can get the Kindle version through Amazon for $5.95.

The book is in its third edition; I cannot recommend this enough for young and seasoned photographers.

Here is a link for you to get the book.

The Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar had Jay Maisel down to speak one year. He had recently switched to digital and loved it. I remember we were talking, and he pulled out of his breast pocket a memory card case and said this was all he needed compared to all the instances of the film he used to have to take on jobs.

Then he talked about his shooting the day before around his place in New York City. He pulled up his camera and gave it to me to look through what was the raw take.

David Hurn’s experience and mine have been that bad photographers don’t want you to see their raw take, whereas the seasoned pro welcomes it.

Jay Maisel demonstrated it by just giving me his camera and letting me look through the images.

36 – exposure 35mm film contact sheet of mine from 1987

In the book, Hurn talks about the “Contact Sheet.” Well, for the most part, these are things of the past when we all shot film. For example, most editorial photographers would shoot 36 exposure rolls of film and then make a contact sheet after processing the film.

The “Contact Sheet” was our first time seeing the images. Of course, now you can look at the back of your camera and see individual photos, but ingesting your pictures into a browser like PhotoMechanic or Lightroom lets you see the entire take as a whole, which is where you learn more than any other place in photography.

There are a few things seasoned pros all have in common, no matter what we shoot.

Most will shoot a frame or two as notes to themselves. It is common to see a scoreboard during a sporting event, so I know when something happens in the game. The play-by-play notes that I have at the game that I can access after the event will help me match the frame up to the time clock. Also, it makes it easier to write a better caption.

It is also common for me to shoot a frame that is just personal notes for myself.

While shooting a subject, things will change to where you will see the photographer explore the topic. So while the audience will only see maybe one photo of a scene as the final selection, the photographer didn’t just walk up, see it and click.

Assuming photos are just one click is what most bad photographers and beginners think or do themselves. As a result, they fail to explore the subject.

If it is a static subject like the Lincoln Memorial, the photographer will walk around it looking for an angle that evokes the emotion they feel. Then, they may come back later and shoot it at night, as I did here many years ago.

As we look at all the images we took before making corrections, the seasoned pros will look consistent in exposure, sharp and good color. Then the pro will go from frame to frame, pondering what they could have done to improve the photo.

Should I have stepped to the left or right more? Should I have been closer or further back? What would it have looked like with a different lens?

When the subjects are moving, I look for a moment when everything is coming together to a peak moment. Enlarge the first photo at the top of the grid of images. Then look from frame to frame. Which picture is better than another photo, and why? Now, if you were there and knew what I was trying to capture because of the conversation, this would help guide you to pick the photo that best communicates.

What happens if I realized that the photo would have been better if I had done something small? A moment is what most seasoned pros will tell you. They are looking for the perfect print and realize there is so much they cannot control that they only get close.

If the subject is static, there is less room for not getting it perfect, but when the subject is moving and you are capturing life as it happens, you get close and rarely obtain the ideal image.

By studying the contact sheet or thumbnails in a group, we can know how to anticipate better rather than react the next time we encounter something similar.

The more you study the whole take and evaluate your work, the more you realize how vital planning will help you do a better job next time.

Another thing most seasoned pros do is, after reviewing their work, they put it away for a couple of days when possible.

Hopefully, you are starting to see that professional photographer isn’t shooting all the time. However, they are doing a lot of planning and evaluating their work, so the next time they shoot, the odds are more in their favor.

Stanley on top of Grandfather Mountain [photo by Knolan Benfield]

 “Say goodbye to full-time jobs with benefits” was the headline on CNN’s website on June 5, 2010. The writer, Chris Isidore, said, “Doug Arms, senior vice president of Ajilon, a staffing firm, says about 90% of the positions his company is helping clients fill right now are on a contract basis.” Not all staff jobs will disappear, but the clear indication is that contractors are growing in the percentage of the job market. 

A couple of years ago, the local WSB-TV reporter Jim Strickland interviewed me about being a freelancer. They were doing a story on the rise of contractors versus staff jobs. 

On May 30, 2013, The Chicago Sun-Times shocked everyone when they laid off their entire photo department. Two weeks after the Chicago tabloid laid off its photo staff, the Southern Community Newspapers Inc. chain in Georgia closed its photo department. 

Change has happened 

When I left college, my career plan was to work for a newspaper for a couple of years and then work for a missionary agency as a staff photographer telling stories of missionaries worldwide. Just shy of two years at a newspaper, I got a call to come and work for the missionary agency for the Baptists in Richmond, VA. The Commission Magazine was their flagship communications piece that won 3^rd place in the Pictures of the Year award while I was on staff as best use of photos by a magazine. Right behind National Geographic and Sports Illustrated. Five years later, it was the end of 1989, and there was a slight recession, and I lost my job.

My plans had no contingency for this situation. Looking at what seemed to be a weakness of not being a seminary graduate in the missionary agency, I went on to seminary. Three years later, the landscape had changed by 1993. 

Loyalty to a Profession, not a Company 

The years of layoffs and downsizing have changed how people think of their jobs. For example, it is more common today for people to feel loyalty to their Profession than to their employer. This is because they are working on advancing their career but no longer see doing this with one company. Many of my colleagues feel called to photography, specifically to the visual storytelling of nonprofit or faith-based organizations.

While twenty years ago, they could find a staff job doing this type of work, those jobs are scarcer than ever, and sadly those salaries haven’t changed in more than twenty years. 

Tentmakers 

The most famous missionary in the Bible was the Apostle Paul. Many do not know that for most of his career as a missionary, he was also a tentmaker. He was a bi-vocational minister. 

Today for people to follow their calling and use their talents, the best path for them may be that of a tentmaker. One of my friends, Greg Thompson, sees himself in this role as a tentmaker. Read about him and follow some of his blog posts here http://tentmakercommunications.com. The advantage of this bi-vocational/tentmaker is the ability to pay your bills and still fulfill your call. 

Balance of Lifestyle and Vocation 

Too often, I talk to young photographers who want to pursue something that would be a very lonely life for most of them. A few have wanted to be war photographers.

After getting them to refocus and tell me what type of lifestyle they wanted when not photographing around the world, it was only then that I could help them see pursuing war photography would require sacrificing some of their lifestyles. I

advise anyone wanting to be a professional photographer to determine what lifestyle they want and then look at what type of photography can sustain this lifestyle. The other way is to look at what you feel called to do in photography, then come to terms with the lifestyle needed to lead to pursue it. 

Due to the shift from staff positions to contractors for most organizations today, you need to be an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur means you must learn how to run a business first. 

Entrepreneur versus Staff Specialist 

Many of my friends who went to seminary to become missionaries studied scripture and preached. However, most didn’t learn how to run a business and do marketing. The seminary didn’t teach business acumen because organizations sent out missionaries for many years. 

Today missionaries may have an organization that endorses them, but most missionaries are no longer staff missionaries; instead, they are in an even worse position than most freelance photographers. They must raise all their support for the ministry and pay their bills. In addition, a portion of their funds must go to the organization that endorsed them. 

Sadly many great missionaries and photographers are having a similar problem; the lack of entrepreneurial skills for running a business has them leaving their professions to find a job to support themselves.

Take a Leap of Faith 

Soren Kierkegaard encouraged Christians to stop turning inward, contemplating their faith, and taking action. This called on them to take a leap of faith. If you focus on paying the bills and security, then I think you have turned your back on using your gifts. But unfortunately, using those gifts is not something that will be easy. I leave you with this scripture, which I hold dear to my heart because there are many days when life throws so much at me that if not careful, I will also focus on my security and not on my calling.