How to be critiqued

Reviewing each other's work.

If you want to grow as a photographer you will need to have someone review your work. There are two types of people to review your work_the general public or a professional. The professional can be another photographer, photo editor, graphic designer or art director.

The public should be able to look our photos and tell us what they get out of a photo and therefore help us know if our intended message came across.

The advantage of a professional photographer who is further along in their journey than you is they can tell you if a photo is good or not, but can give you some tips on how they might improve the photo.

Ground Rules:

1. Let your photos speak for themselves—Be Quiet

2. Edit and show only your best

3. Have everything needed to show your work

4. Get multiple opinions

5. Take the advice and change

6. Go back and show them your changes

Brad Moore critiques Deanna Santangelo's work.

Letting your photos speak for themselves will help you know if you were successful or not. If you wanted a photo to show how much two people are good friends, then the audience will tell you.

If the person reviewing the images ask for more information provide it. Too much information will actually hurt your critique. If you tell the person this is a photo where you were trying to illustrate friendship then the person will then say if it worked or not, but you really needed to know what it says to them when they have no information other than the photo.

Sometimes you might actually have a very strong photo that is a failure. It may be a successful photo in the audience likes the photo, but failed to deliver the message you were going for.

Edit and show your best work will help the person reviewing your work. Showing too much work will weaken your portfolio rather than strengthen it. Your portfolio is to show your skills. You may have a collection of different subjects and/or a photo story. Either way each photo should be showing something different.

You only need one photo to show you know how to do something so make it your best effort. Your second photo should show something different about your abilities. Maybe the first photo was available light and the second one shows you know how to use flash. Your third might be shooting in a studio.

Your photo stories need to work like a written story a beginning, middle and end. The beginning is often an establishing photo to help us know what the story is about. You need to vary the images from wide to medium and then close-up.

Scott Kelby reviews a person's portfolio.

Have everything you need to show your work. Don't show up with a USB drive and expect the person you are seeing to have a computer. Be sure everything works and try it a few times to be sure all the photos load for example if it is on a computer, iPad, or some other device.

Sometimes the best way to show your portfolio is in a book or prints. This way you are not relying on technology that could quit. Don't want that to happen on a once in a lifetime meeting.

Get multiple opinions before making changes to your work. If you show your work to 3 or more folks and they all say there is something wrong with a photo_then you know it needs to go. What will not be so consistent is what they might say as a way to improve that photo. One person may say to back up and another might say crop in closer.

Take the advice and change. Go out and make the changes to your portfolio. Take the photos out that most everyone agreed need to come out. Go and crop the photos that need cropping.

Go back into Lightroom or PhotoShop and re-edit those photos that can be improved.

Most of all take the advice to heart as you shoot your next photos. Watch the edges of the photo. Know what you want to say to your audience about the subject.

Go back and show your changes. Find those people and show them your revised portfolio after you have made the changes and shot some new material. See if you got what they were talking about. Often you will find out that you didn't fully understand what they were saying and by revisiting you will discover this.

Jealousy, Selfish Ambition & Envy

Scott Kelby teaching at the Southwestern Photojournalism Conference.

Galatians 5:19-21
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Let me start today with a confession. I just spent the past five days with some incredible photographers and I was very jealous about their work and their careers.

Scott Kelby

While I applauded their presentations and was really impressed with their work I was also measuring myself to them. I confessed to some of my friends how I was feeling only to discover they too were having similar thoughts.

How do we deal with these feelings?

First we need to acknowledge talented photographers. We also need to tell them that we admire them. The reason for this is this is often the first step to dealing with the problems of jealousy.

I have not only admired photographers in the past I did everything to copy their work. I bought the same gear and even started to dress like them. I do think early in our career it is good to try and copy someone else’s work. This is how we learn. The problem is that when we only copy and not use the process to help us find our own voice.

Esther Havens

At this conference Scott Kelby gave us tips on how to use Raw plugin. For much of the room we were learning how to use Lightroom effectively. I was just thinking—I do that. I started to think I should be up there teaching this material.

Jeremy Cowart

I needed to celebrate how effective Scott Kelby is at teaching. His ability to distill the subject into nuggets and interject humor made everything much more memorable than the way I often teach. I need to work on my teaching. Not copy what Scott does, but learn from him and make it my own.

Jeremy Cowart spoke to the group as well. He is a celebrity photographer who also gives back through Help-Portrait (http://help-portrait.com) a non-profit he started. I was not only jealous of his opportunities, but also envious of his life. Maybe I should dress like him is what actually went through my head. That would look pretty funny. What I need to do is tell Jeremy how much I like his work and impressed with how he carries himself. I need to learn from him and realize I need to carry myself even more professionally than I am doing now.

Garrett Hubbard

Gary Fong

Brad Moore

Esther Havens was at the conference and I am jealous of her work with Living Waters (http://estherhavens.com/blog/archives/1109). What I am learning from Esther is that if I have an idea I can do it. Just do it. She is very impressive. She is helping me realize that opportunities for all of us are right before us—what is stopping us other than ourselves?

Bill Bangham, Garrett Hubbard and Gary Fong were also there and I am jealous of them as well. Each of them does incredible work. What I am learning is to not copy them, but understand why they are successful.

Bill Bangham

Bill Fortney

Jim Veneman

Bruce Strong

Take the time today to write to people that you are jealous of their work and tell them how much you admire their work. See what you can learn from them. Don’t try and become them, but see how what they are doing can inspire you to take action.

What I have learned from this past week—each of us has unique qualities. If we play to our strengths rather than copying others we will be more successful. I recommend Tom Rath's book Strengths Finder (http://www.amazon.com/StrengthsFinder-2-0-Tom-Rath/dp/159562015X) as one way to start this journey if you need some help.

Three Stages of Composition

Stage One: "Literal" Snapshot – making photographs to simply describe what you see. 

Typical Snapshot

Typical Snapshot

A snapshot is popularly defined as a photograph that is "shot" spontaneously and quickly, most often without artistic or journalistic intent. Snapshots are commonly considered to be technically "imperfect" or amateurish--out of focus or poorly framed or composed.

Snap shot - this time with an off camera flash at 45 degrees

We all start with the literal snapshot and often revisit this stage of photography. These literal snapshots are primarily taken for the photographer. These photos are "memory joggers." They help you remember the moment.

Inside snap shot without flash

Inside snap shot with flash at 45 degrees

Believe it or not there are many "professional" photographers who never move beyond this point. Since the bride and groom were there with the photographer, the literal snapshots are like "memory joggers" for them as well.

Another place I see this is my church. After a team comes back from their mission trip they show their photos the team laughs because they get the "inside joke." While not always a joke it is another memory jogger and not a photo that communicates to the audience.

When a photographer realizes that other photographers are getting better looking photos than they do, they often move to stage two.

Stage Two: "Artistic" Snapshot - making aesthetically pleasing pictures that enhance what you saw

Inside photo with flash at 45 degrees and the photographer simplified the background giving more attention to the subject.

In this stage the photographer is aware of visual composition, exposure and how to do things like control their depth-of-field and/or freezing a subject or blurring the background.

This is where a photographer thinks about being sure the subject is well composed.

Not everyone is able to see the difference in their own photos to get to stage two, but believe me most everyone can see the difference between a "literal snapshot" and an "artistic snapshot."

I have written in previous newsletters about composition, lighting and framing and therefore encourage you to review those articles.

Stage Three: "Expressive" Images - images made for public, rather than private meanings. Expressive photography, like all art, offers universal, and often metaphorical, statements.

Ansel Adams said it best, "There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer." Once you realize this and want the audience to feel about the subject as you do then you want to move beyond just the "rules of composition."

Subject in her room. Main light off to the side out of the camera view to highlight the subject and draw you to her.

 Expressive photography interprets, rather than describes, what we see to others.

There are three aspects to Expressive Photography, see the diagram. All three need to be present for the photo to be more than a "artistic snapshot."

Subject close to camera and her room around her. Light off to the right lighting her to draw more emphasis on her.

Abstraction removes literal, descriptive clutter and hones an image down to its essence and encourages unlimited thinking. In music this might be the difference of listening to music that has no words in the tune.

Your mind is free to explore your thoughts. However, if the music has words in the music then it is less abstract even if the words are not sung. Hearing Amazing Grace played even without the words will put a more literal thought and therefore is not unlimited as the abstract music.

If the photo moves too far into just abstraction then the other parts of the triangle become weakened and the photo becomes just an "artistic snapshot."

Tension presents elements that seem to be at odds with their context and creates contrasts and juxtapositions that stimulate both the emotions and the imagination. This is where the photographer helps create a mood within the photo. They may use composition, lighting and exposure or in combination to help move the photo beyond just documenting the moment to an interpretation of the moment. Under expose a little and you create darkness or gloom. Over expose and you may create lightness and lighten the mood.

After photographing my daughter in different locations I started to write this newsletter. My wife called out to me "Stanley you've got to see Chelle." Of course I had to add another photo after seeing her in a tree playing her guitar. Some of the best photos are when you catch the subject doing what they like best.

Human values convey the emotions, beliefs, traditions and knowledge that we understand and share as humans. Genuine smiles communicate across all language barriers, just as frowns and anger will. We often say this is one of the most critical factors of the portrait. What are the three most important things of a portrait?—1) Expression 2) Expression and 3) Expression.

To make expressive photos you must first, ask yourself what it is you want to express through your image(s). How do you feel about your subject?

I like to boil this down to "Why?" Why should anyone in your audience care about what you want them to see?

Journalists are trained to ask: Who, What, Where, When, How and Why. In my opinion the hook of the story often is resting on the Why.

If you failed to ask yourself why you are making this photograph—rest assured that your audience will not know either.

I would love for you to have a chance to comment on which photos you think above are your favorite photos and why? Do any of them work as "Expressive" images?

Pop the Hood

I bought a Toyota Tercel many years ago. Like every car that I bought the car salesman popped the hood and let me see what was under there. With old cars you look for signs of good maintenance.

After I bought the car I was invited back to the dealership for a training session in their service department. They had pizza and drinks for us. They walked us around and then had us take a seat as they went through some basic things that will help us get the best performance from our cars.

They had an engine setup to run in front of us where they dropped the oil pan. Most engines would seize up under this experiment, but they wanted to show the type of oil they use on our vehicles help them perform.

Years later when I wanted to upgrade to a bigger and newer car I was a raving fan of the Toyota and that dealership.

Dan Cathy, the president of Chick-fil-A, is encouraging all of his operators to pop their hood. Customers are now being taken on backstage tours of the kitchen. They get to see how fresh the food is and what top brands of food they use. You will see fresh chicken, Dole Pineapples, Hershey Chocolate, Oreo Cookies and more when you tour their kitchens.

They have been doing this for about a year and some of their operators are excited about the results. They have noticed that these backstage kitchen tours create Raving Fans faster than anything they have done before. Why? If you ever worked in a fast food place you would understand why.

What is it we can take away from these examples? First of all people do notice the difference between good and bad and being sure your product is the best that you can deliver will help separate you from your competition.

Second you need to do like the Toyota dealership, reach out to your customers and help them enjoy your product even more.

If you do everything I suggested you are up their with the greatest of the used car dealers. They pop the hood and they want you to come back and will give you good even great service.

What is the indication you have given the top service. Your customers think of you as their family. This is when you are no longer seeing your customers as your meal ticket. You see them not as people who help you meet your bills.

The key to making this happen is popping your hood. Learning to be more transparent with folks is the best way to make lifelong friends. This is when your intentions are not hidden. It is when you are really thinking about how to make their day better.

When your customers look under your hood will they find a heart?

Spending time with President Jimmy Carter

I just recently I spent the day with former President Jimmy Carter. I was even able to tweet that he was my seat warmer that day. What a really exciting time it was for me to work with The Carter Center. President Carter is the Founder of The Carter Center.

I was covering International Campaign to Eradicate Guinea Worm which the Carter Center is the leader in worldwide. There are only 3 countries left in the world before it is defeated. The last major disease defeated like this was small pox back in 1978 during President Carter's presidency.

I really enjoyed the event since everyone was so excited about the progress of the campaign. I could tell President Carter was very pleased. He was so easy to photograph and gracious to his guests from all over the world.

While I am always concentrating on getting the best expressions and moments with people interacting to help tell the story in the most effective way, I am also looking for graphically interesting angles to add a little interest. I liked the ceiling here in the press conference.

The logo for the Guinea Worm looked so similar to their staircase at the Carter Center that I not only thought it was a cool graphic, it also tied into the event with the look of the Guinea Worm being twisted onto a stick. (Carter Center Logo Below)

Come and Visit vs. Go and Tell: Secret to Growing a Business

The Little Red Church on the Big Island of Hawaii

Last week during a devotional time Derek Schoenhoff, Pastor of The Little Red Church, on the Big Island of Hawaii asked who authorized the temple? He opened my eyes to how much man wanted the buildings and not God.

Today many churches have this idea of inviting people to their programs at their buildings. Ya'll come now. Come and visit has become the mantra.

This is not the only thing that turns us inward. Many of us understand that Jesus died for us. The problem with continuing down this road of thought is that we can become very self-centered.

Rick Warren starts his Purpose Driven book with "It's not all about you." Derek Schoenhoff is reminding us of Jesus last words to his disciples to "Go and tell."

What I have discovered the past few years when it comes to business, I too had become very self-serving and asking folks to come and visit my website. Come and find me.

The more I read the scriptures the more I learn about a God who came to earth to serve rather than to be served. He asked us to do the same.

What I have been doing the past couple of years is exploring how to be a servant to my clients. First of all you need to know this is quite difficult and I continue to fail in my efforts, but I do believe I am starting to see this is the path to success.

Jesus told us to go the second mile, but in order to do so we have had to already gone the first mile.

So, what I have learned is for most of my career I focused on making better pictures. If you build it they will come. What I have learned watching many of my friends careers falling apart is most folks know the difference between bad and good photography and very few the difference between good and great.

Why didn't they know how much better I was than who they were using for their photography? My work was better than most, but there were others better than me. What was strange was those who I thought had better work than me were also struggling. Those whose work was OK were flourishing.

So, this past year I finally had a moment when it clicked. People know the difference also between good and bad service, but also most of them all knew the difference between good and great service. Even more amazing was people were paying top dollar for that service treatment.

People pay for the experience as much as for the product. If you have been trying to build a better widget and figure the world will come and buy--they may, but you will build a better business when you have focused outward. Going to them and doing whatever it takes to make their lives better and more comfortable.

Those most relevant in social media are those who share and are focused not on themselves but others. Do you want to grow your business--then focus on service, no matter what your widget is.

Shallow Depth-of-Field

Figure 1 - Nikon 85mm ƒ/1.4

For this e.Newsletter I thought I would answer a question I received the other day from a friend.

Hey Stanley,
I have a quick question for you. I bought a Canon ƒ/1.4 50mm prime lens last year and I love it. My only issue is that when set to automatic the depth-of-field can be so narrow that a nose is in focus and an eye is out of focus. I’m assuming that the aperture is just too open. Is there a rule of thumb when taking portrait-type shots as a minimal (or max – not sure which is which) aperture? Maybe I just need to stay on aperture priority and ƒ/1.8, or something. What’s your recommendation?

One of the most popular lenses being bought today is the 50mm ƒ/1.4. The reason for the popularity is the silky smooth shallow depth-of-field obtained when shooting at ƒ/1.4. You will see a lot of wedding photographers using these to not only get that look, but also used because you can use it to make photos when flash is not allowed—like during the ceremony.

Figure 2 Nikon 60mm ƒ/5.6

Often when you are inside and you cannot use flash the rooms are so dark you need a lens with an aperture of ƒ/1.4 or ƒ/2 to get photos. The problem is that you can only go only so slow with your shutter speed before the photos are blurry due to movement. If you were photographing objects and not people then you could take a photo with a shutter speed of 1 second, but with people you need to be shooting at least at 1/30 of second or faster to avoid movement issues, which will give you, blurred images.

When using the lens for portraits wide open at ƒ/1.4 and filling the frame with someone’s face will very quickly give you the results that you just described.

There are a couple things that affect depth of field.

1) The ƒ-stop/aperture.
As you already know the lower the number the less depth-of-field you have.

2) Distance to subject.
The closer you get to a subject the shallower the depth-of-field when the ƒ-stop stays the same. In macro photography for example when you get as close as 1:1 ratio you often have to be at a ƒ -stop at a minimum of ƒ /11 to appear in focus. When I do macro photography the aperture is quite often at ƒ /45 and it still appears like a shallow depth-of-field.

Figure 3 Nikon 60mm ƒ/45

This photo here (figure 3) is at ƒ/45. See how the eye is out of focus. You would think at ƒ/45 everything would be tack sharp, but it isn’t.

My suggestion is the closer you get you will need to increase the ƒ/stop to keep the facial features of the eyes, nose and mouth in focus. I personally don't mind the ears out of focus.

I occasionally will shoot with my 85mm ƒ/1.4 wide open and just get a persons eye in focus, but the number of photos you need to take to get an acceptable photo can increase due to them or you moving. I usually shoot between ƒ/4 and ƒ/5.6 for headshots to keep most things in focus.

When doing group photographs, people are often two or three deep in the photo. In these situations you need to be shooting at ƒ/8 or greater aperture or either the people on the front or back will not be sharp.

If you own a shallow depth-of-field lens like ƒ/1.4 just remember if you want that silky smooth out of focus look behind the subject you need to be sure what you want in focus is in focus. On many of the new cameras you can move the focus point around in your viewfinder. This will help you maintain your focus and composition. Focusing in the center of the frame and then recomposing the photo will often give you poor results since the tolerances are so critical.

Figure 4 Nikon 60mm ƒ/8

Practice by making portraits at ƒ/1.4, and then do some at ƒ/4 and then some at ƒ/5.6. Get comfortable with the look of each aperture and when you want a certain look you will feel confident that you can deliver, because you have practiced.

Got a question about photography you would like to see me write about, send me a note and let me know at stanley@stanleylearystoryteller.com.

Christians in Photojournalism Winter Newsletter

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Photographing your Passion

Your dream assignment often will be a self generated one. This is my conclusion after pitching ideas to National Geographic Magazine and other publications for the past 25 years.

The first step to the dream assignment is defining your passion. What gets you excited and willing to champion a cause?

Early in my career I got that dream job as a photographer for The Commission Magazine. This magazine covered Christian missionaries all over the world. The magazine was competing with National Geographic Magazine for the best use of pictures in the Picture of the Year contest put on by the National Press Photographers and Missouri School of Journalism.

This was my second job after a newspaper job. Since I was the new guy, my job wasn’t as glamorous as the other photographers who on a regular basis traveled the world. I was making portraits and passports for all the missionaries and their families as well as teaching them how to tell their story using slides.

Occasionally I got to do a story, and it was always in the states showing how local churches were supporting their missionaries.

I did get to hangout with Don Rutledge, Joanna Pinneo and Warren Johnson when they were not globe trotting the world. While I would say my favorite thing is shooting a story I am passionate about, my second favorite thing is listening to other photographers tell their stories that they are their passionate about. This is why I regularly invite photographers to my home and let them share their photos from around the globe.

Just this past month we had 20 photographers at our house sharing stories about Pakistan, Alaska, Japan, Haiti, Mexico and other spots. This is equivalent to having the photographers of National Geographic Magazine sit beside you as you turn the pages and give you the behind the scene look of the story. It is even better because they show you even more photos than they were able to publish.

My passion is showing the love of God for his people. Sometimes I show the joys, and sometimes I show the pain.

Just this past October I was privileged to tell a story with a twist on what I thought was a traditional missions story. I traveled to Mexico to get a close-up view of why Mexicans have risked their lives to travel north to find jobs. Why would people spend $2,000 to $3,000 to pay a coyote to help them navigate the desert for 3 – 5 days and nights? Since 1994, 5,000 Mexicans have perished in their attempts to cross the border.

I discovered one solution to the illegal immigration for coffee farmers. About ten years ago while sipping a $5 cup of coffee, Mark Adams was talking to a former coffee grower who told him how coffee growers’ income dropped over 70 percent in just a short period of time in the late 90’s. This was just about the time that illegal immigration was getting worse.

Mark was working for Frontera de Cristo. It is one of the six Presbyterian Border Ministries of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico and the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. The group was doing micro loans to help families start small businesses to support their families. The coffee issue was bigger than they had addressed.

They then formed a Just Trade Center to help address the issue of the coffee growers. They, along with the help of others like Catholic Charities, gave a loan to the coffee growers for $20,000 that was enough to buy a roaster. It was such a huge success that they hope to find other industries where they can help a community like they have done with Café Justo.

Take a look at a package I created to help introduce people to their concept. I believe once you learn about their story you will start to explore other ways you can become an informed consumer helping to address the issues facing immigration.

As you can tell I got a little side tracked and this is what happens when you find a passion. Even if you have to donate your time to do a story you feel passionate about do it. Then you have something to share with folks about what you want to do for them.

As you can tell from my project, I had to get some friends involved to help me with the voice over, help in picking the best folks to tell the story and many eyes and ears to help refine the story. So when you get ready to tell others about your passion and need help—give me a call.