How to develop muscle memory for photographers

This is a great clip of the Famous trumpet players Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong playing together. Listen to the fast sections by Dizzy. This is a great example of muscle memory.

Dizzy Gillespie was the king of the lightning fast riffs of Bebop. No one ever thought of playing the trumpet the way he did. Not even Louis Armstrong played as fast and complex as Gillespie.

I studied trumpet from elementary school through college. I never could play the trumpet like Dizzy Gillespie. What I do know from playing all these years are how to train myself to play music took practice until I could play things using muscle memory.

Muscle memory isn’t something stored in your muscle but your brain. It is a form of procedural memory where practicing something over and over slowly and then as you pick up the speed can then perform something quickly.

Stanley in traction for a month to help with broken neck.

Here I am in the body cast that I would be in for 8 weeks. That made learning to walk even more difficult.

Another thing about muscle memory is if you don’t use it you can loose it. When I was in third grade I broke my neck. They put me in the hospital for a month in traction. After getting a body cast they had me try and stand. I had to have help.

For the next few days I had to learn how to walk again.

Elementary violin student practices and learns to reach with his left hand to create chords and how to do certain chords back to back so later this is effortless. Early when learning the process is just making it work.

Professionals continue to keep their skills at the highest level so when they need to perform, the muscle memory can kick in and help them tackle the most difficult things thrown at them.

Professional photographers need to take on projects that they can move at slower paces to help keep those muscle memories sharp and accurate. If you practice over and over the wrong way to do something then when you tap into your muscle memory you will perform poorly.

One of the best things I have learned to help me stay sharp is shooting photo stories on my own time. It maybe me shooting a self assigned project or taking on an assignment that gives me the luxury of time verses a quick deadline.

The best things to work on are those that I can shoot edit and then have time to go back and fill in the holes.

Early on in my career I practiced shooting with feature stories. Some of these features would be on a person who had a large collection. I could shoot the photos looking for the seven things I outlined in an earlier post on “Variety the spice of life.”

Today I find I need more of these type of detail shots to help round out a multimedia package than I did in the printed story.

When I started producing multimedia packages I soon realized I needed even more images. Why? Audio drives the multimedia package. If you have an interview you want the images to compliment the audio. Sometimes you want to show some of what they are talking about and then sometimes you just need another image so as to help keep the story moving.

With multimedia you use transition images more than you do in a printed story. This is where photos showing transition from one part of the story to another might be helped with a visual. Sometimes the audio has a background noise that having an image of this will help the audience where not including the photo makes the background noise more annoying. Example of this might be hearing of a screen door opening and closing to a country store. You can hear that in the background of the interview of the storeowner. I would include a shot showing someone coming in through the screen door to help resolve this sound for the audience. You don’t need a photo for every time you hear it, but having one will help the story move along.

Why?

Why take stories that you can work on for longer periods of time? This is how you develop that muscle memory for the fast moving deadline story. You need to take things slow and do them right over and over before you can make this part of muscle memory.

Why do this over and over through your career? Don’t you learn how to do this once and you know it?

Just as I forgot how to walk due to inactivity, so too will your storytelling abilities go to atrophy if you do not continue to tell stories.

This is a project I worked on in Mexico on coffee growers. I was able to take my time and like the results.

I watched my mentor Don Rutledge come back from overseas story coverage’s for his staff job and then go out the following week and shoot some stories for syndication through Black Star. I often went with him to watch and learn. Some of those stories didn’t have endings. Because we were able if necessary to go back and fill things in since these were more evergreen stories we could talk about what was missing. What I learned is sometimes a story doesn’t fit the classic beginning, middle and end.

Are you working on stories that you can take slowly and be sure all the elements are there on a regular basis, or are you just shooting the assignments given to you on deadline?

Put on your calendar some self-assignments if necessary for you to slow down and take the story at a slower pace so you can practice the art of storytelling. As we all know practice makes perfect.

Taking my own advice

This past week I have taken some of my advice about getting out of a creative rut.

November 9th Taylor turned 21 and the family headed downtown to Fat Matt's Rib Shack.  You could have probably called this a black hole for photographers. Very little light and I just took my point and shoot Nikon P7000.

Everyone was just having fun and so I just tried to capture the mood we were all in that night. I like being sure I have my camera with me for moments like these.  They are first in the slide show. I enjoyed the band to help lighten up the mood that night as well as the good BBQ.

We then enjoyed some cake at the house.  I just enjoyed capturing the moments of family life at our household.

After eating BBQ on Thursday, we were inspired to return to our new favorite BBQ joint in Blairsville, GA--Jim's Smokin' Que.  I wrote about our first visit and want to say they are consistent. The food was just as good this time, plus we also had for desert some peanut butter pie.

The road we took from Roswell to Blairsville was filled with twists and turns. Sine this was making our daughter car sick we took a different way than the GA400 and Hwy 19. We took the Appalachian Hwy over to Blueridge, Georgia. 

I remembered my friend from Showcase many years ago had moved there to open a Wine and Cheese shop with other fun things to shop for. So I looked up Sara Auman on my iPad and then we headed over to her store "Out of the Blue."

The best part of walking in the door was Sara remembered me by name. I always thought she was one of the best camera salespersons I ever knew.

What was rejuvenating about these past few days? Spending time with family. Enjoying good food and music. We changed the scenery and drove through the mountains. I visited an old friend.

I already feel better and encourage you to also take time with your family and friends. I recommend going to Blairsville for some great BBQ with Jim at Jim's Smokin' Que on the Gainesville Hwy.

Overuse of the smile with photos leads to feeling of setup

I find people who smile all the time creepy.  I also find people who are in the same mood all the time just as disturbing. When I say I have a friend who is real, I am saying I see all the sides of emotions with them. They smile, frown, tear up and even get mad in our relationship. 

Take a moment and look at your communications, especially your photos. Is everyone only smiling in all your photos?  Are they all sad? Do people ever have puzzled looks on their faces?

Maybe the reason your company is slipping is your communication style if frankly creepy and disturbing on some level. 

I have been working with higher education for years and even have my master in communication through the education department of a seminary. I see my role as an educator as much as a communicator and storyteller. 

I just want to chase a rabbit here so you might see where this thought came from.

Lev Vygotsky believed children’s thinking is affected by their knowledge of the social community. One of the things he helped to develop was the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD is the distance between a student's ability to perform a task under adult guidance and/or with peer collaboration and the student's ability solving the problem independently.

The concept also is applicable to adult learning. When you look at what you can do right now with no one’s help and compare this to what you could do with someone who is an expert on the subject you see the gap that often exists between the two.  Vygotsky believed teacher’s role is to be the scaffolding to help the student reach things that alone they would not be able to do in the present moment.

I look to others who are experts to help me process material I want to understand. I love going on tours of places and have tour guides give me information that I wouldn’t have gotten without them being there. It enriches the experience.

Many organizations I am seeing have a gap of their present communications and what they could be doing. One of these areas is the overuse of the smile in photos.


Sometimes I walk into a classroom with a person from the school organizing the photo shoot and they will tell everyone why we are there and please look natural and then after a couple of minutes of shooting they stop everything and ask everyone to smile and look like they are having a good time.  Mind you they maybe dissecting a frog in a biology lab, but they must smile.

This is when I am reminded I see the bigger picture and they are just starting the journey of using images to communicate. 

Now I want to contrast this to a recent photo shoot.  The client gave me the class schedule and I was to walk around and get photos of the classes going on.  Everyone was told I was there and to go on as normal.

They even said you know what you are doing and I trust you. They wanted what I produced for other clients and let me have the freedom to gather the content for them.

I went from classroom to classroom with my photo assistant. Everyone was natural and occasionally I had to use some flashes to get photos, which I know were disturbing the class a little, but everyone was great.

The school was a seminary and this is where people are being stretched.  The students come with perceptions and thoughts guided as much by the pop culture as by their scripture. The seminary will challenge their faith system and help them construct one built on scripture and not pop culture.  The students are often not smiling, they are often perplexed and I show this.

Since my wife and I both went to seminary and in my family we have more than 30+ who went through seminary I consider myself more of an expert as to how people pick a seminary. 

I want to look for a school that is academic and presents me with information that challenges me. I want to go to a school that I can relate not just to the professors, but the students as well.  I want to go somewhere that the student population seems to be a family and enjoy one another.

People who are looking for a seminary tend to be much deeper in their thoughts than the general population. They are choosing to go to school and when they graduate with this masters will most likely mean their salary will go down and not up. To choose this path one must feel called.

I wanted the photos at the end of the day to communicate some of these emotions, thoughts and content that I had felt while I was there that day.  I think the photos do look like more than all smiles and the people look real to me.

Why is this so important to me? I think if I were to capture only the smiles I would have made the seminary look more like a school for a cult than a seminary for those who will be leaders of the Christian faith.

As professional communicators we need to understand the "big picture" which is often beyond the reach of the present audience.  We are to help them by providing those step stools to get them to reach their goals. We have to help to inspire them to look up as well.

When your creativity becomes stale

Stanley's new profile photo.

There are times when I look at my work I see things getting stale; there is just nothing that pops. You want your work to have visual surprises so that your work engages the audience.

While your work may still pop for your audience because not everyone has seen your work everyday like you, this still doesn’t remove the feeling you have about your own work. If you wait to address this when you clients are thinking your work is stale then you have waited too long.

Through the years I have tried many different things to get me out of those ruts. Here are some things I have used and continue to use at times to help get my creative juices flowing once again.

1. For the photographer I recommend trying shooting all day with an extreme wide angle lens like a 20mm or even wider. If this is your normal lens of choice try something different like a macro or extreme telephoto. It is forcing you to look at the world differently than you are doing now.
2. Change your routine. If you eat your breakfast always in the same room, take it outside on your deck or go to another room. Drive a different route to work.
3. Change your food for a while. Eat at different restaurants or even try a new ethnic food you haven’t had before.
4. Plan a trip. The process of looking for somewhere to go, planning the logistics and who to go with can help inspire you.
1. Plan a day trip to a park, an event, or a historic location.
2. Plan a weekend trip to the mountains, beach or just a bed and breakfast in a town nearby.
3. Plan a big trip somewhere.
5. Take a Workshop, Seminar or Class. This can be something in your profession or just something different. If you are a photographer you may take a painting course or go to a college to hear experts speak on something new for you. Enroll in a community college class and learn something totally new and different.
6. Read something new. To find something to read ask some friends what they have read lately. If you like biographies—Google the topic and put in date ranges to see what pops up. Maybe go to a local library and talk with a librarian for ideas.
7. Watch some movies or go to play/theater. Look into documentaries or classic movies. Put out a request to your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn connections to have them recommend something to you. Don’t just consider what is in the theaters.
8. Change your diet/health. I joined Weight Watchers after years of going to a gym. I lost 50 lbs and that made a huge difference in the way I see life. I put some of this back on so I now am adding other activities to get back to my ideal weight. It is amazing how much being out of shape can adversely affect your creativity.
9. Take up a new hobby. Maybe you sign up to learn how to fly a plane. Maybe you volunteer to help with boy scouts or some other civic group. Get involved somewhere that will expose you to people who think differently than you. It is here that your emotions and brain will stretch in new ways of thinking and feeling about the world.
10. Start trying to make a photo a day. Quickly you will discover that you will have to live with mediocre to accomplish this goal. Maybe the thing holding up your creativity is failure. Take on a project that will be OK if you fail, but give you ample room to have success as well. Maybe the creativity is blocked not by lack of desire but the unwillingness to live with less than perfection.

Most importantly do not measure your life by what you do only—learn to measure your life by learning to just be. For me having my friends around doing nothing, but just there is more rewarding than them always doing for me.

Create drama with lighting

How do you get the photo on top verses the one below?  Read on.  When you light everything and use a white background this is what you typically get on the bottom. TIP: to get a clean white background, be sure the background is 1 stop greater than the subject. Also slightly angle the background so it isn't perpendicular to the camera or you will get a light flare caused by the background. (Figure 1)

I like to light parts of a scene and not all of it.  If you light everything as done in the photo above it gives a sterile or even feeling of the after life and living in heaven. If I want that look then I might use this lighting setup.  The other advantage of even lighting the subject can move and spin and the light will look the same and you don't worry about shadows in the wrong places.

Figure 1 was done using this setup.  There are three lights on the background and two on umbrellas lighting the statue. (Figure 2)

Using the two umbrellas like in Figure 1 I now just used 1 light on the background, but now with a blue gel.  Because it takes very little light to affect the white background the two lights on the subject are spilling over to the background and washing out the blue color. (Figure 3)

This is the lighting setup for figure 3. (Figure 4)

By just changing the background from a white background to a black background and everything else the same as in Figure 3, now the blue pops. The reason is the black sucks light as opposed to reflecting light like the white background. (Figure 5)

I personally like to have more drama as in this photo of the golfer with the blue background fading out to black around the edges. 

As you can see everything is the same, There are actually two changes: 1) White to Black Background and 2) 4 times the light through the blue gel.  Just remember to get the gel to look the same color as you see it, it must be 2-stops brighter on the background than the light on the subject assuming you expose for the subject. (Figure 6)

Just changing the gel and leaving everything else the same I can now decide which color I like best. (Figure 7)

Here is what the setup looks like in figure 7. (figure 8)

Changing back to the white background I again get contamination from the front lights and it goes pink instead of red. (Figure 9)

For me this photo is too pink and there is pink light on the subject.  This happens when you are not controlling your lights. Learn to control the lights by not lighting everything up like you do with umbrellas.

Figure 9 setup. (Figure 10)

This is shot on the white background.  I changed the setting on the background to -2 stops under the setting of the subject. I removed the umbrellas and put 10 degree grids on the lights. (Figure 11)

Here is the setup for figure 11.  Everything goes black except for where the light is hitting.  This is how you can control the light and not light the whole room. (Figure 12)

You don't need to use gels to get a dramatic effect, but the more you learn not to light everything but just parts of the photo is when your can direct the audiences attention in the photo.  There is more than just to lighting parts of the photo, you can ratio the light throughout the photo and have some parts not totally black, but slightly darker than the subject.  This way you still see those other aspects of the scene, but they are secondary to the main subject. It is like have two or three sentences in a paragraph and you direct the reader to who the main subject is and the the supporting roles.

Here the the light powered down for the white background for figure 11. (Figure 13)

Just changed the red gel to blue and left everything the same as in figure 11. (Figure 14)

You can see all I changed is the gel to blue from red to get figure 14. (Figure 15)

Here you can see I have the power way up, actually 2 stops greater than the subject. This is for figure 5 photo. (Figure 16)

A tip to make your gels last longer. Cut them to the size you use for your strobes and then take gaffers tape and wrap the edges. When you use them on the lights be sure after checking them with the modeling light to turn the modeling light off.  They will last longer and not melt or catch fire. (Figure 17)

Some of my gels I have labeled.  Here I have the gel on left labeled 3200 Kelvin and 81B. This lets me know I can put this over a strobe to match incandescent light bulbs. The one on the right is 30G letting me know for many fluorescent lights I can balance my strobes to color match the florescent.  (Figure 18)

Use dark objects to learn how to light

If you like this image I will walk you through the steps to get here. (Figure 1)

I started here and got the exposure to pretty close to the tones in the carving. (Figure 2)

By just adding one light off to the right I got the next image. (Figure 3)

I liked the result, but wanted a little more color in the bowl than I have in this photo. (Figure 4)

Here you can see that the statue is back lit naturally, but can see the first light to the right that I added and the second fill light I added just next to the lens on the left. (Figure 5)

The reason I chose a dark object to light is because it is much more difficult, but also shows you how the light dramatically improves the object.  It works similarly with a lighter object, but the results are harder to see sometimes.

I had the object back lighted to be sure you understand the light I am adding truly helps.  This is like having people looking at the camera and it is the best angle, but the sun is behind them.  By just turning on the flash you get a better result, but there is little to show the shape of the object as compared to getting the flash off the camera.

One flash off camera give nice shaping to the face. (Figure 6)

By adding a fill light just beside the lens on the left, we help not only fill in the shadow side, the photo transforms from an almost black and white look to a color feel. (Figure 7)

Now for all the photos above the exposure compensation was used at -2 stops under what the auto exposure was reading.  I had my flashes under exposed or 0.  The reason is the camera wants to make the statue a neutral gray when it is actually darker.  To compensate I under exposed to fool the meter to get what was correct.

I am using the Mini ColorChecker by x-rite so you can see the color as shot in each situation with this series.  This will not just help you see proper exposure, but the color space for each photo. (figure 7)

I wanted you to see you can just use a reflector to help improve the photo, but please pay attention to not just the shadows being improved, pay attention to the colors. (Figure 8)

Shot with fill and you can see not just exposure but color temperature will be different with reflector or flash. (figure 9)

Here with one flash to the right of the camera and one behind the statue you can see ho it improves the tones and the color space.  This is why I prefer using strobes over reflectors alone for portraits.  Another major benefit with strobes over a reflector, is the reflector gives a constant light source which will cause most folks to squint. (Figure 10)

This is the final result. Shot with Nikon D3s and 85mm f/1.4. (Figure 11)

This was the setup for Figure 11. By the way, I shot this with my Nikon P7000 with the flash on for fill. (Figure 12)

I thought the light behind the golfer was a little distracting, so I moved it to the left out of the photo 180 degrees opposite the main light to the right.  The Nikon TTL system is balancing the background -2 Stops under to the flashes which are normal of 0 setting. (Figure 13)

This is the setup for Figure 13.  Again I shot this on the Nikon P7000 with the pop up fill flash to help the statue and the camera gear to have some definition. (Figure 14)

Practice lighting with some objects that are dark or even black. See if you can change the mood of the situation by just positioning the lights in different places. Maybe you use the X-Rite Mini ColorChecker to see if you are setting the camera's white balance correctly to get the best color.  If you shoot in Raw you can correct this later, but if you shoot in JPEG you can change it later, but the results are noticeably poor.

What one week of mine looked like in September

My mentor Ken Touchton called to tell me that I need to show what I might do during a week of my life.  He knew that what we do as freelancers, if you are succesful takes more time than a 9 to 5 job with occasional evening events.

I decided to start with a busy shooting week for you and then contrast it to a slower week.  I want you to see how some weeks you have no time at all to yourself.  I am not doing this every week, but you must be willing to take on weeks like this to be successful as a freelancer.  It is feast or famine in this line of work.

I have been using the Nikon NPS pocket calendars since 1983.  This might be more telling of my camera preference than anything else.

One Week of Shooting

August 29^th, Monday

·      6:00 a.m. Getting up shower, eat and pack van

o   Check emails

·      7:00 a.m. Leave the house with Photo Assistant

·      8:30 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. photo shoot

o   During the day the CEO asks to get photos for a PowerPoint slide the next day. ( I contact my person who was going to be getting the photos that night to process the next day to meet me at the meeting to start processing all the images early.  By the way this person was going to watch my daughter while my wife is out of town)

·      9:30 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. editing and creating PowerPoint slides from all the days images to email to the CEO for him to have 3 choices to pick from. Put batteries on chargers. Reformat cards and clean cameras.

o   Check emails

August 30^th, Tuesday

·      6:00 a.m. Getting up Shower, eat and pack van. Help be sure daughter is up and ready for school bus.

o   Check emails

·      7:30 a.m. leave house with Photo Assistant

·      9:30 a.m – 5:30 p.m. cover meeting again.

·      6:30 p.m. arrive home cook dinner and hand over all images to photographer/assistant to process.  She will process all the RAW images from last two days.  Edit out bad moments and make JPEGs.  These will be burned to DVDs and put in FedEx package (which I have already prepared) to drop off to be overnighted to the client for Thursday morning.

·      8:00 – 10:00 p.m. unpack van and charge batteries and then pack for the trip tomorrow
o   Check emails - Create Invoice and send the PDF to the client with a W-9 form

August 31^st, Wednesday

·      6:30 a.m. Up and getting daughter off to School.  My photo assistant stayed over to get daughter off to school and be there to meet her later in the day when she came home. (wife is still on trip)

o   Check emails

·      9:00 a.m. leave for the airport

·      10:00 a.m. – 12:00 Sit at airport checking emails and corresponding about todays trip. Also sending thank you notes to the clients on Monday and Tuesday.  Check with Friend/Assistant watching my daughter. 

·      12 – 3 fly across country

·      3:30 get to Rental Car location 45 minutes later after putting in address to GPS on the road for 2 hours to location.

·      5:30 p.m. drop by the location that I will be shooting the next day and meet the people and talk for an hour to get an idea of the place. 

·      6:30 – 8:30 go to each with the writer on the project

·      8:30 – 10 check in hotel, unpack and setup computer as work station and check emails and respond.

September 1, Thursday

·      6:30 am up eat and checking emails.  (Still planning photo shoot of the Chick-fil-A Kickoff in couple days)

·      8:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. Shooting stills and Video interviews of story

·      7:00 – 8:00 p.m. go eat

·      8:00 – 11:00 p.m. editing of images and video

September 2, Friday

·      3:00 a.m. get up and  drive 2 hours to catch a 6:00 a.m. flight back to Atlanta

·      Noon – touch down in Atlanta

o   Get bags and go to parking service to pick up van and drive home

·      1:30 p.m. finally home

·      2:00 – 9:00 p.m. Edit video and still images into a 2:30 minute package and send to client for changes and approvals.

o   Checking emails and phone calls about the next day. Scan all receipts and create expenses report and email this to client for the trip.

September 3, Saturday

·      9:00 a.m. Slept in and am exhausted

·      11 a.m. Wife, Daughter and I eat lunch

·      12:00 drop daughter off at friends and then my wife and I drive to the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game.  Dorie, my wife, has been volunteering in the press box for 18 years and for a much shorter time I have covered the games for clients like the teams, wire services and corporate clients.

·      1:00 p.m. – 1:00 a.m. cover the pre-game events, the game and then leave

September 4, Sunday

·      8:00 a.m. – noon edit all my images from the day before

·      1:00 – 4:00 download images from two other photographers and put together a sights and sounds 2-minute slide show with audio.  Send this to the client to have published on Monday morning.

During that week of shooting I was still checking my voice mail, because I couldn't take calls while shooting, but the moment I had a break I would listen and see if I needed to respond.  You have to respond pretty quickly to offers or clients move on to someone else.

I still like to use the moleskin's and NPS calendar even with today's new technology which lets you sync your phone, iPad and computer with your calendar, notes and contacts.

Non Shooting Week

September 19, Monday

·      6:30 a.m. Shower, breakfast

·      8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. drive to Visual Consulting client’s Corporate Offices

·      9 – 10 a.m. checking emails and talking to folks in the office by seeing how they are doing.  Building relationships

·      10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. two meetings back to back.  I listen in on editorial meetings.  I am listening to see what they have planned for visuals on projects.  Occasionally I ask about what they have planned.  Many times I have a list of ideas that I am ready to offer as suggestions.  But most of the time I am trying to think more strategically and offering observations when appropriate in the meetings on workflow and procedures.

·      11:30 – 1:00 p.m. eat in the corporate dining room.  This is actually another long meeting. I try and sit with new folks when I can or sit with some of the team that I work with to get to know them better.  I find out what they are working on and see how they are doing.

·      1:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. more one-on-one meetings with different people in departments around the company trying to be sure they are all aware of how we are there to serve them.

·      3:30 – 5 commute home

o   Making and taking phone calls along the way. Often following up on a conversation earlier in the day.

·      5 – 6 p.m Checking on emails and working on connecting with clients

September 20, Tuesday

·      6:30 a.m. Shower, breakfast

·      8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. drive to Visual Consulting client’s Corporate Offices

·      9 – 10 a.m. checking emails and talking to folks in the office by seeing how they are doing.  Building relationships

·      10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. meetings

·      11:30 – 1:00 p.m. eat in the corporate dining room.

·      1:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. more one-on-one meetings

·      3:30 – 5 commute home

o   Making and taking phone calls along the way. Often following up on a conversation earlier in the day.

·      5 – 6 p.m Checking on emails and working on connecting with clients

·      evening sometime – write this blog and post it.

September 21, Wednesday

·      6:30 a.m. Shower, breakfast

·      8:00 a.m. – 11: 30 a.m.

o   Often posting blog or working on the next one. 

o   Going through my database of 5,000+ contacts and seeing who I have not contacted. Often this then prompts me to categorize those and write an email that I can then blast out to a group that appears to be very personal, but is often to similar audience.  An example might be a letter to all those who are at magazines, working for education or maybe church organizations.

o   Check my analytics on my blog and website

·      11:30 – 1:00 try and get lunch with my wife who works from home as well

·      1: 00 – 5:00 p.m.

o   Similar to the morning, but now checking to see how many emails bounced, what links they clicked on if any.

o   Responding to the responses from the emails.  Sometimes they have something else in mind and my email just prompted a call. 

o   Removing people from my database that have lost their job or moved on.  Creating a new contact for these companies. This requires some investigation through their website often or a phone call to see who is the best new contact for me.

·      5:30 – 7:30 Wednesday evening meal and bible study at our church

o   Side note. Because of my profession and working in the past on the staff of church organization, I have been asked to help curate missions photography exhibits, teach classes on how to take photos on mission trips and asked to teach Sunday School. While I could teach without a seminary degree, my seminary training helps me pull on resources I have for these classes. I often will use examples of stories I have covered to make points.  This is part of my BRANDING.

September 22, Thursday

·      6:30 a.m. Shower, breakfast

·      8:00 a.m. – 11: 30 a.m.

o   Checking emails and correspondence.

o   Combing website to look for new contacts, which then I put in database and send them an email right away.  I have created some quick form letters that I customize for the recipient.

o   Review my presentation for UGA photojournalism students

·      11:30 – 1:00 drive to Athens, GA for presentation to UGA

o   Phone calls while in car to clients and potential clients.

·      1:00 p.m. Eat quick lunch

·      1:30 p.m. show up at Professors office to catch up and prepare for class

·      2 – 4 p.m. teach class

·      4 – 4: 30 p.m. answer some questions from students

·      4:30 – 6 p.m. drive home

o   Phone calls while in car to clients and potential clients.

·      Evening – check some emails and call it a day.

September 23, Friday

·      6:30 a.m. Shower, breakfast

·      8:00 a.m. – 11: 30 a.m.

o   Often posting blog or working on the next one. 

o   Going through my database of 5,000+ contacts and seeing who I have not contacted. Often this then prompts me to categorize those and write an email that I can then blast out to a group that appears to be very personal, but is often to similar audience.  An example might be a letter to all those who are at magazines, working for education or maybe church organizations.

o   Check my analytics on my blog and website

·      11:30 – 1:00 try and get lunch with my wife who works from home as well

·      1: 00 – 5:00 p.m.

o   Similar to the morning, but now checking to see how many emails bounced, what links they clicked on if any.

o   Responding to the responses from the emails.  Sometimes they have something else in mind and my email just prompted a call. 

o   Removing people from my database that have lost their job or moved on.  Creating a new contact for these companies. This requires some investigation through their website often or a phone call to see who is the best new contact for me.

September 24, Saturday

·      Spend an hour checking emails

September 25, Sunday

·      Spend an hour checking emails

·      Spend an hour to couple hours writing blog

Some Tips

Keep a Journal

I try and journal as often as I can.  I find that by writing down the things on my mind is a way to help me process.  I then have looked back through this to remind me a few things. First, of all I see that I survived what seemed like a major deal. Second, it keeps me humbled and thankful for all the blessings I have received.

I can now look back and see that I worked very hard to make things happen, but also because I am reviewing these journals see that often the jobs I have gotten were not because of something I did. Many times I get jobs for reasons I cannot explain and a great deal of work I did may have helped, but I can see only God could have opened some of those doors for me.

Write it down

Sometimes I will have an idea and in the past I would forget about those great ideas. Now I write them down in something similar to my journal.  While I now see that some of these "Great Ideas" wouldn't work, they have helped keep my creative juices flowing. Now I often turn these "Great Ideas" into blogs or they become a newsletter.  Sometimes they have inspired me to write emails to clients that did lead to jobs.

Summary

Have a system in place to keep you continuously connecting with your clients and potential clients on a regular basis. Think often about your clients and what they are dealing with and see if there is anyway you can help lighten their load.

Remember don't wait for clients to call you with a project--you call them with projects they would want to do.