Tips for contacting professional photographers for help

Ways to connect

You can reach out to photographers in so many ways. First I think it is important for you to know some basic etiquette for connecting.

Introduce yourself

Tell the person who you are and why you want to connect. "hi my name is—after reading about you I noticed we have a few things in common" or "hi my name is—I have been following your blog and really liked your post on ..."

Give the person a reason they should want to connect with you!

Tell them about you. When you reach out to someone and tell them very little and they go and click on your profile it needs to help them.

If on Linked-in I highly recommend a professional headshot. This goes a really long way to show you are a real person, rather than a blank avatar. The blank avatar makes you look like a creeper.

You really need your profile to be up to date and helpful to those you are reaching out to for connecting. Make it easy for people to see why they should respond positively to you.

The point of the about me section is to show yourself as an authentic person and a great way for people to want to connect with you. We are not interested in a sales pitch. Things about your hobbies and interests go a long way to help people want to connect. If you were an Eagle Scout this helps others who have this background connect on a different level with you.

The about section is all about you and a great way to introduce yourself to others. Fill this out as best you can or otherwise many of those requests for connecting will be ignored.

@ email

If you choose to email a photographer, be sure you follow a similar protocol.  Keep the letter short and to the point. 

I think three simple questions you need to answer in the email in some way:

• Who are you?
• Why are you contacting me?
• What do you want me to do?

Connect the dots for the recipient. Don't make them have to figure out what you are saying.

Be willing to pay

There are many places to go for someone to critique your work. There are camera clubs, workshops and seminars where photographers will give you some of their time.

The expectation of a private consultation where you are getting career advice is something you should be willing to pay. Free advice is often worth what you pay for it.

It would be great to spend half hour each week having coffee with Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin or Jeffery Gitomer for free. You know this might actually happen for a couple people and most likely they are already good friends with them.

Good mentors are hard to come by and getting good advice that can save you time and money in your career is worth every penny.

Unless the person you are contacting is on staff with a regular salary, they make their living through photography—shooting or consulting.

Good mentors have connections which this alone can change your life forever. A few years ago I had a young college student who was about to graduate ask me for an internship. We talked for a while and the next day she sent me a thank you note for taking the time to talk with her. She also thanked me for some very specific points from our conversation.

Needless to say I was impressed with her character. I was not in a position at the time to pay her and I let her know I would give her time to ask any questions each week. She went with me just about everywhere for about two months.

My client Chick-fil-A was as impressed with her as I was and offered her a job as a writer. 

She paid me for my time by helping me and due to her investment landed an incredible job.

Stanley and Knolan Benfield in Kona Hawaii for workshop on lighting.

Workshops

Early in my career I went to numerous workshops with NPPA and ASMP. There were two major workshops where I shelled out about $5,000 per week to study with two of the icons in the industry.

I went to the Maine Workshop and studied with Steve McCurry from National Geographic. The total cost of flying, hotel, food and the workshop was just under $5,000.  I learned a great deal from that week and not just from Steve, but from others in the class with me.

A few years later I took another class at the Maine Workshop with Jeff Smith studying location lighting. Again I learned so much from Jeff and the classmates.

I offer personal workshops for people who are interested in this profession. I charge $125 an hour with a two hour minimum for whatever they want to learn from me. I have taught people one-on-one how to organize their images. I have done personal workshops on using hot shoe flash off camera for portraits. I have taught people business practices and/or marketing.

If you know of another professional photographer that you would like to learn from, then approach them and if they don't offer workshops propose to them they do for you.    

If you are not willing to make an investment in your career, why should anyone else want to either?

Reuinted after 33 years

Dr. Ken Day enjoys catching up with Knolan Benfield after some 33 years.

A couple of days ago Nicholas Spratlen sent me an email that he and his friend Dr. Ken Day wanted to come and see the missions photo exhibit at Roswell Presbyterian Church.  They both get my e.Newsletters and read my blog and were fascinated with the concept.

I was pretty excited because they didn't know that my uncle Knolan Benfield was coming to town the same day for a visit.  We met them at the church and frankly Nicholas and I barely got a word in, Knolan and Ken were just enjoying catching up and swapping stories about what it was like working together for the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board during the 1960s and 70s. 

Dr. Ken Day and Knolan Benfield

"What impressed me the most about Ken was when he became the head of the communications division he went back to school and got his Phd in communications from the University of Georgia," said Knolan. Today for the first time he told Ken about how he felt.  Ken was sort of paralyzed for a moment. No one had ever thanked him for doing that.

It reminded me how important it is to tell people the positive things they do for you.

The other day I wrote to my friend John Spink, a photographer for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.  I was just taken back at how consistent his work was in the paper and with all the cutbacks it is hard to work for a newspaper these days.  I just wrote and told him I was really impressed with his work.

John's response was unbelievable.  He said the comments made a big difference for him that day.

The reason for the get together, the missions photo exhibit that I curated for Roswell Presbyterian Church.

Take the time today and pick up the phone, get on facebook, send an email or just send a hand written card to someone.  Thank them for what they did in your life.

I had to share these photos of Ken and Knolan, because you can see in their faces that they really were enjoying each other.  We all need that in our lives.