How Photography Helped Me: Part 2

Don Rutledge, pictured here, is the person who helped me to see and understand body language in ways that Social Work didn't teach me. [photo by Bill Bangham]

What I was learning with Photojournalism:

While a freshman in college I got my first SLR camera and began shooting for the school paper and yearbook. I would take my work to my uncle, who was a professional photographer and who worked as a photojournalist to review.

Going through my contact sheets he started to teach me how to improve my images. While I was somewhat learning about body language in Social Work, it was with my uncle and later with Don Rutledge that I would be schooled in the finer points of body language.

Instead of me looking at a movie of me during the day and analyzing my social awkwardness, I was learning by observation of others with my camera.

While many think that those with Asperger's Syndrome lack sensitivity to others and lack empathy, I believe just the opposite. While their outward social skills are lacking they are aware of many things people do not see.

I believe their desire to avoid social situations is they often feel things about others and do not have the innate ability to process and articulate spontaneously these feelings. My experience is that I feel too much and it often can cloud my social skills and make it difficult to respond in a moment. It is much easier for me to avoid situations than to embrace them and learn from them.

Knolan Benfield with an environmental portrait of the pastors of leading congregations in Hickory, North Carolina in 1985.

Knolan Benfield

In 1985, my uncle, Knolan Benfield, was excited to show one of his series of photos of ministers. His excitement and telling me all he had to do to make these photos captured my attention. I had never been interested in what other people do like this before.

Knolan had combined photojournalism with portrait photography using lighting for the first time in his career. He took environmental photos of senior pastors in their church buildings. With each pastor he worked hard to find those architectural settings that made each congregation different.

One of the things he was most excited about was the composition. He had learned from Don Rutledge how to pull the audience into a photo by creating layers. These layers pulled you from front to the back of the photograph.

This is an example of where there are layers from front to back in a photograph helping to create more interest.

One of the things that are quite different in Knolan's portraits from his days as a photojournalist was the use of lights. He almost never used lights in his photos when shooting for magazines.

Knolan combined the existing light with the strobes to help create depth and interest. To do this in 1985 he would get the light settings using a handheld meter and then add a flash to just be a little brighter than the rest of the scene, maybe 1/2 to a full stop difference.

Knolan bought a special film back for his Hasselblad system that would let him shoot a Polaroid to do a test shot. This was revolutionary for him and quite new at the time.

It was early in my career and I was not able to take all this and do it myself until some eight years later in my career.

In the meantime I would leave my first job at a newspaper, where I was perfecting my understanding of how to make a photograph and tell stories, to go and work with Don Rutledge and Joanna Pinneo.

While I was learning how to see social situations using my camera, it would take years of shooting before it started to sink into my personal life.

Sensory Perception

I was naive in my early jobs that when higher up people asked me for my input that I spoke directly and with such candidness that it would hurt me.

Those with Asperger's tend to not see the point of superficial social contact, niceties, or passing time with others, unless there is a clear discussion point/debate or activity. Their allegiance is to truth, not people's feelings.

While those with Asperger's are not good at explaining why he or she did something that appeared to contravene the social codes; but, equally, typical people are not good explaining the exceptions to the codes and reasoning for their social behavior.

Today there is a remarkable DVD that is an encyclopedia of emotions, entitled Mind Reading: The interactive Guide to Emotions. Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues at the university of Cambridge identified 412 human emotions (excluding synonyms). They examined the age at which children understand the meaning of each emotion, and developed a taxonomy that assigned all the distinct emotions into one of 24 different groups. A multimedia company then developed interactive software that was designed for children and adults to learn what someone may be thinking or feeling.

On the DVD, actors (including Daniel Ratcliffe) demonstrate facial expressions, body language and speech qualities associated with specific emotions.

In essence the DVD does some of what I had to learn on my own through Social Work and Photography.

Problems with Non-Verbal Communication

Adults with Asperger's syndrome may have problems with non-verbal communication, according to the National Institute of Neurobiological Disorders and Stroke. They display awkward body gestures, inappropriate facial expressions and/or an odd stiff gaze. They rarely look people in the eye and do not display any form of joy such as smiling, winking or hugging.

This may sound harsh, but when you have a camera around your neck your odd behavior may look a little more normal. Maybe the way you appear is that you are looking for a photograph. This may be true, but it allows me to study the situation without being as harshly judged.

When I was young I ran around almost all the time in an army uniform playing to be G. I. Joe. The other attachment I had was to this tractor, which I rode everywhere for a few years.

Intense Specialized Interests

According to the Better Health Channel, adults with Asperger's syndrome tend to have very intense time-consuming specialized interests. These individuals usually become experts in one or two areas and excel in their chosen careers because they choose jobs that best fit their interests. They are often referred to as eccentric, which sometimes causes social isolation. An example of an intense specialized interest would be someone who spends long amounts of time studying science and statistics, but has little interest in anything else.

I have an intense interest in photography and specifically using photojournalism to help causes. I tend to read a great deal and study nuances to help me be a better storyteller.

Many people are surprised as to how much I get done. Asperger's has helped me stay on task to do tedious business and marketing tasks. It has helped me to spend time problem solving computer issues related to my photography.

People with Asperger's syndrome are often perfectionists, tend to be exceptionally good at noticing mistakes, and have a conspicuous fear of failure. I have been able to channel this to help me perfect my photography and the fear of failure has kept me busy with marketing. These are some examples of how Asperger's has helped me with my photography business.

The Porfolio

Funny thing that is important in photography more than other professions, is the portfolio. Your work must be at a certain level before you get an interview. This works to the advantage of a person with Asperger's. In general we do not do well in job interviews where you need to sell your abilities to an employer. My work is the first foot in the door, which my personality alone might not make it through.


Resource

Because of the way I am wired, I am very good with picking up anything to do with the computer and photography. Also because of the way I had to teach myself to understand things, I have discovered I make a good teacher. This is due to the way I have had to break things down into parts to then put them back together to construct the whole.

Today I spend a great deal of time problem solving the teaching of technical concepts. I have also discovered over time there are so many ways to approach a problem, because I often approach things different than other do and because of this I know there needs to be more tolerance of others.

I remember crying as a young boy because the model motorcycle I was trying to put together was missing a few steps in the instructions. My mother made me wait to ask my dad if he could help. What happened was no one could figure it out. I spent hours until I found a way to solve the problem.

This emotional feeling of not being able to figure something out and no one could help me was depressing. I keep this in mind when I teach today. I encourage students and let them know I believe in them. I give them space and will come along side them so we together can process the problem.

I realize that if they can figure it out with someone encouraging them that they will feel better about solving it than if someone just gave them the answer. I know that because of how proud I was of that motorcycle when I finished it.

Where I am today on this journey

I love to take on a problem that hasn't been done before. One of my favorite jobs was photographing research projects of engineers and scientists. In those situations you are photographing usually a one of a kind that hasn't been photographed before. You have to figure it out. It is not a cookie cutter solution.

Adults with Asperger's syndrome can be renowned for being honest, having a strong sense of social justice and keeping to the rules. This has been what keeps me focused on storytelling on social justice issues.

Asperger's Sydrome people can acquire The Ability of the Mind abilities using intelligence and experience rather than intuition, which can eventually lead to an alternative form of self-consciousness as they reflect on his or her own mental state and the mental state of others. this is a highly reflective and explicit self-consciousness as similar to that of philosophers.

I have learned to use this awareness to help me be a storyteller of other people's stories.