Example of shooting an event to tell the story

This is our family at Nelson's graduation from the US Army Armor School at Fort Benning, GA. 

The event: Our Son Graduation from The US Army Armor School at Fort Benning

I wanted to lead with the most common photo many of us take at a graduation. The family has a group photo with the graduate. I setup the photo before I got into it, so there are some things I did for this first photo that I recommend.

1. Turn the flash on. In this photo you will quickly notice that had we not had the flash on you would have not seen our graduate's face due to the shadow of the hat covering his face.  If you look closely you will also see how on my daughter the shadows would have been worse around her eyes without the flash.
2. I used the background to help our family remember a little about the event. Nelson is part of the Cavalry and the statue behind him helps capture that as well as his hat.  In addition the building is the main building for the Armor Division and is called Maneuver Center for Excellence.
3. Spacing of the group is done so you can see everyone's face but we are not too far apart so that when you take the photo the faces are too small.  
4. The front to back is well used. We have the family closest to the camera and not right next to the statue or the building.  This is a common mistake many make, because to then show the statue for example and the family you would back up and everone's face would be like the size of a dot in the photo.  
5. Some angling to not be perfectly parallel to the building.  This helps create depth to the photo.
   

Statue to help communicate this building is the home of the Cavalry.

Detail shots help round out the coverage for the day.  I took a moment and walked around the statue until I found an angle that helped to communicate the power of the statue.  Shooting up really close made it where I was shooting almost straight up.  This helped make the statue look powerful.  Further away would have taken away the emotion of the power.

Look for details and then notice I had a purpose for the photo.  I wanted communicate something.  If you don't know neither will your audience.  Take a moment and think why you want the photo.

Capturing emotions helps to communicate

I know that if you go through some of the intense training the military, then you most likely have developed some emotional connections to others on the team.  This was not an event for me, this was our son's graduation.  I needed to show what this school meant to him.  One of the ways to do this is to show people reacting to their friends. 

While this was not my son, capturing others enjoying each other help to communicate the bonds formed in the school.

When a subject looks into the camera they are looking at the audience.  While I prefer unposed photos of subjects reacting to people and not the camera, sometimes their a moments where the subject engages the viewer.

I notice people using their cameras probably more than most since I do this for a living. What I think this captures is how important an event is to a community.  When I take a photo of others taking photos it shows that to these "photographers" this is important to them. 

His role is to help update the social media pages for the unit and here he is getting some visuals for his next post.

At attention for the national anthem.

Patrick Lencioni, author of the New York Times best seller "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" says ceremonies are important for people to move on in life.  He even said that weddings are as much a funeral for those leaving single life as it is about the joining together. 

After hearing Lencioni speak on this topic I realized how important the symbolic ceremony is to helping us with changes in our lives.  The simple act of listening to the national anthem changes everything when you are at a military ceremony. It brings to your mind and heart the commitment of soldiers for our country.

Capturing not just a prayer, but for me I see the elected official and the military in this photo.

In the middle of the two officers on stage was the Governor of the State of Georgia. Our elected officials are responsible for calling for war on a country.  It highlights the importance of going to our polls to elect not just someone because they may believe in similar ideals that we want fostered. It means electing someone to office you trust will have the mind and heart to carefully consider what the right thing to do is when we ask these soldiers to lay their lives on the line.

I shot this as tight as I could and tried to use the American flag to help communicate this is an elected official.  This is Governor Nathan Deal of Georgia giving the keynote address to the graduating class.

Our son Nelson is being given the Iron Man Physical Fitness Award for having the highest Physical Training score in the graduating class.  Nelson scored a 347.  Presenting him the award is Governor Nathan Deal.

The moment Nelson reached out to take his plaque and give a handshake to the Governor is the pinnacle moment in the ceremony for our family.  "The Decisive Moment" was when I thought would be the moment that helped tell the story of the day.  While this is what I thought prior to the days event as the story telling moment, I am not sure that some of the other photos don't do just as good of a job.

If I were transmitting the photos to the Associated Press this would be one of the ones I transmitted, because it is something you would expect to be in the group of photos. While you want to be sure you have it, the editor may pick another photo that works.

A good reason not to use the photo is because it is what you expect--that's right.  Sometimes the reason you don't use a photo is because it is cliche.  Does this photo really make you want to know what is going on?  I think not. Our family likes it, but you reading this article may be just as happy with another photo that is stronger in your opinion.

Get the 2nd fiddle as well. While the first handshake by the Governor was cool others should still be photographed. My son didn't spend one moment with the Governor during his schooling, but he did spend time with this leader. Which one will mean more to the graduate? Get both and he will love them both.

The standard establishing photo.

Sometimes we get to focused and just get the photo of the handshake at a graduation and then one more photo of the family. Round out the story.  Show where the event took place. It gives some context to the situation.  The thing this photo does better than all the other photos is it gives an idea as to the size of the class and how many of the soldiers families came for the event.

This is the only graduation that the Governor has come to this year. It was newsworthy because he came. How do you tell the audience how important it was that the governor was there? Show the media coverage and you help communicate how big of a deal this is to the state of Georgia and the country by taking this photo.

When you get the award for "Iron Man" you want your photo to show the "big guns." Putting him in front of the tank works for the Armor Graduate. Notice the flash was used here.

While you can have people pose for you, you can get some cool photos of when they are not posing for you but for someone else. One of the reasons these photos work is they are different.  Look through all these photos again. Count how many of these photos you would always expect most people to get, then count those that are different.  What did you notice?

When people are posing for others get those photos too, but from a different perspective.

Okay if you are reading this you made it to the end. Did this give you some ideas for your next event? If so please take the time to let me know by writing below your comments. It is through your comments that others will get more out of this than just from my words alone.

Is there room for another photographer in the room?

Stanley teaching photography at University of Nations in Kona, Hawaii.  Youth With a Mission runs the school.  (photo by: Dennis Fahringer)

At the Art Institute of Pittsburgh campus alone, there were reportedly about 600 photography students pursuing a bachelor of arts or associates degree as of last summer, says Kathleen A. Bittel, the whistleblower whose testimony before a US Senate committee last fall helped trigger the federal lawsuit against EDMC.

[…] “Where are 600 photography graduates going to go? You cannot absorb that many in one city. How are they going to make money?”

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/news/The-Art-Institutes--3531.shtml

I believe there is room for another photographer in our industry.  To be successful a person must have the total package.

What are some of the things you need to be a successful photographer?

1.     Need a portfolio of professional quality images

a.     Well composed

b.     Good Exposure

c.      In Focus

d.     Great Light

e.     “Decisive Moment”

2.     Business Acumen

a.     Knows their home budget needs

b.     Knows the “Cost-of-doing-business”

c.      Knows their market place

d.     Has a consistent marketing plan

3.     Inner Drive

4.     Continuous Improvement

a.     Looking to improve their portfolio

b.     Looking to improve their efficiency

c.      Looking to improve their marketing

While I have been working as a photographer in some capacity for 30 years, it was in 2002 I became a full-time freelancer.  This is where I was responsible for the business side of photography if I were to be successful.

I reached out to a very successful Ken Touchton.  He called almost daily those first few weeks giving advice and calling to see if I was following through. 

When I teach I give similar advice given to me.  What I have discovered is very few ever follow through.  One day I shared how frustrated I was with students not following through with Ken.  He then let me know I was one of the very few that ever listened to him.

I had a few other friends who lost their staff jobs and also reached out to Ken and me.  After a few weeks Ken stopped following up with most all of them.  They were not following through and so he stopped wasting his time if they were not going to take his advice.

Most all of those photographers continue to struggle today.

This year Greg Thompson, director of corporate communications for Chick-fil-A, was talking with his team about their role.  “When a ship misses the harbor it isn’t the harbor’s fault.”

This metaphor helped me see how so many photographers businesses were going under.  They were spending their time working on websites and portfolios.  They were creating a harbor and not a ship.   It is a common mistake of businesses.  The “Field of Dreams” concept doesn’t work for the photographer.  You just don’t take a photo and people line up to buy it. 

Is there room for another photographer in this industry? If you want to be paid to shoot for yourself then there is no room for you.  If you want to shoot for others and help them achieve their goals with your photos—then you can make it.

Still Life - I like it to look natural

I prefer food looking like it is in the home or location and not in a studio

I was on a shoot at a home and noticed this on their dining room table.  It just looked so inviting that I had to make the photo.

The photo I was shooting when I saw the pie on the table just a few moments later.

Together the photos really communicate life on the farm and in the country.  The photos were later used for Country Living.

When you are photographing people look for those detail shots. When you use them together you get what we call the x-factor.  This is when the message of the combined photos communicates something totally different than the photos just by themselves.  They strengthen each other.

Roswell Georgia Remembers

Take you camera with you this holiday--you will be glad you did and sorry if you left it at home.  While many of today's events are situations you cannot stop and have to go with the flow, you have to think more to clean up the backgrounds and get the right angle to tell a story.

While these are not going to win the Pulitzer they do keep me shooting and looking.  This exercise of the eyes and brain will lead you to better photos.

Do you see the variations in types of photos below?

First woman guest speaker, Captain Donna C. Rowe, Army Nurse Corps Vietnam 1968-69, hopes her talk helps them invite more women veterans in the future.

Crowd of about 6 - 7,000 listens to Guest Speaker Captain Donna C. Rowe.

Veteran pauses for a portrait after handing out flags to children and adults.

Roswell Faces of War Memorial

Crowd at the celebration

Pledge of Allegiance

Presenting of the colors by Piedmont Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution

Tent Lighting

Lighting cube shot with Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5.  It triggers the studio strobes with it's built in flash.  The pre-flash fires and sets the exposure and then second flash takes the picture.

If you are doing product photography you need to know how to do tent lighting.

You may remember as a child taking some chairs and throwing a sheet over them and getting inside to play. If you used a white sheet you have a pretty good idea what tent lighting does—it diffuses the light.

If you already own a white tent with a white bottom then you can just set this up and you are pretty much good to go.

You can buy a cube tent like I have. I use the Interfit 4 foot cube tent. Here is a link for you Click Here

The basic idea the white material diffuses light passing through it and bounces light off of it inside back on the subject.

You need at least 2 lights to get a really even light and often I use 4. I put two lights on either side then one on top and one on the bottom. I like to literally wrap my subject in light. The best objects to see the results of tent lighting are black. You can see detail all around the object.

By the way, I used a point and shoot Lumix camera and the flash on the camera set off my studio strobes and there you have it—a perfectly lit object.

Simple shot of binoculars which are black and give you example of how evenly the light is around the object using the tent lighting. 

Example of flash built into Panasonic Lumix.

Which photos would you use?

Figure 1 - I like the body language of the student taking a biology test.  I also like that the background with the body parts is behind her.  The dish in front has tissue she is having to identify.

Sometimes the only way is to show folks. I believe many of my clients hire me over and over because of what I deliver as compared to my competition.

I want you to look at these situations and see the before and after treatment that I often do with lighting to give my clients a choice.  I often will shoot available light and many times I find that adding a light to part of the scene can enhance the photo.

Figure 2 The student seems more engaged than the student in Figure 3 and interested in the subject due to her pointing with the pen to the different parts of tissue.

Figure 3 While this student maybe be thinking about the parts like the lady in Figure 2 she is not visually showing the same interest in the subject.

Lighting can help create a mood.  The client sometimes isn’t sure what look they are going for in terms of mood, so I give them some choices.

Figure 4 With her hands by her side and not on the paper like the student in Figure 5 she looks at a loss for the topic.

Figure 5 The one eye engaged with the model, lips are tight, the fingers tightly grasping the pencil all are communicating she is in control of this content.

Which of these did you like the best and why? You can comment on them below. I would be interested in your thoughts as to which one you might choose and why?

Figure 6 Shooting with just the room lights.

Figure 7 Adding flash and colors to the room.

Figure 8 Adding a flash to the women helps to separate them from their surroundings.

Figure 9 You eye is not as drawn the to subjects as in Figure 8 since their faces are in the shadows.

Figure 10 Good color and pop is achieved with a flash off camera.

Figure 11 The subject is more like a silhouette and faceless as compared to Figure 10.

Figure 12 The whole room was given a boost of light with the flash to give a greater dynamic range which makes the color pop.

Figure 13 With just the light in the room the subjects have strong back lighting from the window which causes a flair which diminishes the colors.

Figure 14 With flashes raising the light value on the subjects and less light on the background, helps direct the viewer to what they are doing and increase the pop factor.

Figure 15 The stage lighting on the conductor makes him standout against the darker house lights in the background.

Figure 16 A flash is used on this back lit subjects to draw your attention to their faces.

Go back and look closely at the color and compare those with flash and the one without flash.  Do the ones with flash have much punch and color?  I think so, but do you see it?

No Setup Photos

The cry of all the focus groups when they review most educational recruiting pieces seems to always say they want natural looking photos and not setup.

After having spent the last twenty plus years as a photographer shooting pure photojournalism, where you capture what happens in front of the camera to shooting for advertising pieces, where there are stylists arranging everything in a photo; my experience says most focus groups are asking the wrong questions.

“Do you like the photo?” is not as good of a question to see if the photo was successful as a question like “What did you learn from the photo?” You can even have a photo again on a questionnaire from your recruiting materials and ask, “Does the photo help you see what a typical dorm room looks like?” You could even have a follow up question “What could improve the photo to show you a dorm room?”

The reason I have come to this place about evaluating photos is my experience with truly “real” photographs. I have spent many years shooting “photojournalism” for magazines, newspapers and wire services. You do not change a thing in these photos and you do everything you can use composition, lens choices, lighting and timing to communicate the mood and reality of a situation.

Often a photojournalist’s photos are not “pretty” pictures. Photographers will even use their composition to create more conflict to add to the mood of the photo. Having a focus group evaluate war photos with the typical questions we ask “Did you like the photos?” will give you results which would say the photographers were not successful.

How can you know the right moment to take a picture unless you have a fairly clear idea of what the subject means and what you are after? When you are interested in a subject, you want to learn more about it. You dig below the surface values to the truth beneath. That way you get to know it intimately and are able to photograph it understandingly.

Understanding does not necessarily mean a technical knowledge of the subject. Understanding is interest, sympathy, curiosity, the human element of the equation.

While photojournalism will give you “real” photos, sometimes reality for recruiting will keep your institution on the same path rather than to where you would like to be.

This is where what I call the “sitcom” photography works best. We all know the sitcom isn’t real, but it can create such a reality we are all tuning in to see “Who shot JR?”

This is the type of photography where the school has determined where they want to go and then create communications pieces to help them attain the goal. For example if you want to be more diverse in the future, you will need to show diversity. If you keep it real, you would then research to find those situations where diversity exists already. Then you would photograph those situations and play them prominently in your piece.

As one person put it “You don’t want to be the lone raisin in a bowl of milk.” If everyone works to help the school to become more diverse it can be done.

As you can see there are a few ways to communicate your message using photographs. The ideal scenario is to have “reality” photos. If you had a photographer go to everything you did this year—then maybe you would get the reality you need.

Sometimes “reality” isn’t what you want to show. The student wearing another competing schools T-Shirt. A student with major over weight issues or skin problems can detract from the message. This is why so often we re-create reality like the sitcom. If properly planned, you will tune in and want to know more about your school.

Photographs are made of light, mood, texture, form, and line. The value of techniques lies in how they are used. Techniques by themselves are barren. To come alive with meaning, they must be employed interpretively. This is where I come in. Give me a call and let’s make your recruiting photos—REAL.

To Break the Rules, You Must First Know the Rules

Finding Forrester is one of my favorite films. In the movie, William Forrester, played by Sean Connery, is a reclusive Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who never gave the world a second novel. Forrester befriends a 16-year-old inner-city basketball player named Jamal. Jamal, an aspiring writer, visits Forrester's apartment to seek the author's wisdom. In one scene, Forrester and Jamal have a lively discussion about rules of writing, such as "You shouldn't start a sentence with 'and'." They talk about how breaking the rules can create a wonderful impact. If overdone, however, it also can have a devastating impact.

This is so true in photography. Photographers must study and know the rules of good visual composition like writers study and learn the rules of good writing composition. Once you understand the rules, your ability to break them helps you have better impact with your photos.

Breaking the rules can create visual surprises. Tom Kennedy was the director of photography for National Geographic magazine when I showed him my portfolio many moons ago. While at the time my work was professional and of excellent quality, Kennedy's comment was that he wanted more surprises.

Kennedy had seen just about everything in his role at National Geographic. When Kennedy said he wanted to see more surprises, he wanted -- for example -- to see shots that weren't taken from my normal standing height or sitting height. One of the things his critique had me doing right away was looking for the extreme. I started shooting with my camera on the ground, and finding ways to get up high. I also started to shoot extreme close-ups, another change in what I'd been doing.

There comes a point in your photographic journey where you begin to find your own voice. In the movie, Forrester had Jamal use a typewriter to simply copy Forrester's work. The author began doing this after he set down a typewriter in front of Jamal, and the pupil just sat there waiting for something to come into his head. When Forrester saw Jamal wasn't typing, he asked Jamal, "What are you doing?"

"I am thinking," said Jamal.

"No thinking," Forrester replied. "That comes later."

To get the juices flowing, Forrester gave him some of his own work to copy. It was through punching the keys and going through the actions that Jamal loosened up and slowly, after copying the work, started to write his own work.

Photographers do the same thing. We copy other people's work to learn how they did it, and then add the underlying technique to our long-term memory to use later. Most of the arts require the mastery of certain skills before you can create your own original works. This typically takes about five years. You can see this as musicians learn to play an instrument like a piano.

After copying the concepts of other photographers, you soon learn that your work is no better or worse than many others. This is when you realize that to stand out from others, you must do something unique -- your surprise.

Forrester had a great quote that made me think; he asked, "Why is it the words we write for ourselves are always so much better than the words we write for others?" As photographers, we don't always receive assignments that challenge us; there's only so much you can do with a check presentation, for example. Most of the great photographers I know have a secret to their work -- personal projects that sustain their creative juices.

The key to surprising others is to first surprise yourself -- to take risks and look through your camera in a different way, not being afraid to break the rules. Stretch your way of looking and see if there is a better perspective than you normally take when making photos. Who knows what you might discover?