Stories Matter Now More than Ever

April 20, 2020 0 Comments read Blog, Education, Inspirational

This is a time of uncertainty, pain and upheaval. It’s a time of distrust and disinformation on a massive scale, enabled by the easy and instant distribution of social media.

It’s also a time of amazing, heartbreaking and heroic stories.

Last week I got a letter from my friend Eric. He’s a Navy nurse stationed in Spain, one of the areas in Europe hardest-hit by the Coronavirus. He described long hours, uncertainty and even gratitude that he and his family are healthy even while he’s on the front lines of the fight against this disease.

I thanked him for sharing his story with me and wished others could hear it too.

My neice is an ICU nurse in Washington, D.C. I have friends and other family members who are in healthcare. Some of them have also had to deal directly with Covid-19 in their own homes.

We hear these stories, usually second- and third-hand, but more people should hear and see them.

Another friend, Scott, a Chinese medicine practitioner and acupuncturist in Washington State (another Covid hotspot) is dealing with the issue as well. His staff voted to remain open to help patients with critical needs during the pandemic, though most clinics have closed, and he’s using savings to keep his staff on payroll.

Many can relate to these stories, directly or indirectly. But what we can’t do—what we aren’t seeing enough, I think—are the stories of the lives of people on the front lines of this pandemic, both patients and healthcare workers. For safety, logistic and privacy reasons, it’s hard to do. Not impossible, but complicated.

Yet, it’s what we need to be seeing more of. Doctors and patients are behind the curtain—-and we can’t see the battles they encounter nor the significant successes, either. The same is true with other front-line workers, from police officers to rescue personnel to postal workers.

Seeing the real impact on the lives of these people would help everyone to see the costs of the pandemic. We’d see that we all are in this together.

Months from now, when we look back on this time, I hope we have documented these stories. They will remind us of our capacity for solving big problems, and ultimately healing, together.

–30–

Cinematic, environmental portraits

April 2, 2019 0 Comments read Blog, Client Work, Education, On Location, Portraits, Shop Talk

I love creating environmental portraits. That’s good, because I make an awful lot of these as a commercial photographer.

One challenge when doing such location portraits is that the benefit—the environment, which can offer very cool, very visually striking contextual cues—can also be a severe liability. Imagine showing up to a shoot to find you are limited to shooting portraits inside a tiny conference room with orange walls, or in the middle of summer using an interior of a steel shipping container (both are recent examples).

So what do you do when the environment detracts from, instead of adds to, your portraits?

I opt to shoot portraits with very shallow depth of field, in order to throw my distracting backgrounds out of focus. Then I carefully add in lights to create depth and color as needed. Given the time of day or the situation, this may require using ND (neutral density) filters or high-speed sync to achieve this look, but it’s worth the extra effort.

The results are tack-sharp portraits that pop from the soft background, minimizing the things I don’t want while giving a sort of cinematic feel that I love.

Light Matters, College Edition

February 11, 2019 0 Comments read Education, Light Matters

Just a few short months ago, I published my first book, Light Matters: A Photographer’s Guide to Lighting with Flash on Location. The book distills my decades of experience as a commercial photographer and a working photojournalist and offers practical advice for approaching subjects and lighting challenges on location.
The book has been available on Amazon, Kobo and Apple Books from the beginning of the year, in digital and print form. It’s been a cool learning experience. I’m even more excited to hear how it’s being used in various ways: recommended by the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), the trade association for professional photographers in the U.S., for example. Now, a Maine university is using the book as one of its textbooks in an upper-level photojournalism course (the University of Southern Maine, right down the road).
In fact, that’s perfect. My photojournalism foundation is where much of my thinking about how to approach location work, clients and subjects was developed. I love that, in some small way, my experiences will end up helping a brand new crop of photojournalists.

Images Matter, Now More than Ever

May 30, 2018 0 Comments read Blog, Business, Education, Marketing, Shop Talk

Building an image library is a top priority for any brand that wants to tell their story effectively and connect with their target audience.

You likely already know that quality, relevant, custom images are no longer a ‘nice to have’. Your content—specifically, your visual content—is your advertising.

In short: Your visuals are your brand.

The gatekeepers are gone and you—the independent businessperson, the marketing professional—are in charge of your own media channels.

Remember Spider-Man: With great power comes great responsibility.

All of the digital tools, many free or nearly so, are at your fingertips. Are you purposefully telling the story of your brand: what you do, why you do it, what sets you apart? Or are you hoping that your haphazard efforts will cause others to automatically ‘get’ you?

If you’re using someone else’s images, words or campaigns, then you’re not telling your own unique story. You’re in the best position to do so.

Cutting through the Noise
People react and connect with authenticity. A stock image isn’t likely to make anyone sit up and take notice, but a real moment, whether shot on an iPhone or a Hasselblad that costs more than your car.

What you Need When you Need it
Content marketing is built on consistently delivering targeted content that is on-brand and on-message. Having an image library means you’ve always got good content that can work for your purposes. Without one, your marketing is going to be less consistent, less frequent and less impactful.

Gives Structure and Meaning
Having a plan for your visuals and keeping your brand story in mind automatically provides a structure and gives purpose to your photo shoots. Instead of floundering you’ll be producing relevant content that’s meaningful to your brand and useful for the forseeable future.

What are your Seasons?
Every business has seasons. Periods of high or low volume. Cycles of growth and cycles of maintenance. Holidays. When are your seasons? When do you tend to get new clients, and why? When do you tend to be focused on new initiatives and what external events can you build content to match?

Evergreen Content
A good image library has a mix of content which may include video as well as still images. Some is very specific for a campaign, a product, a season, or a person or team. Other images are more ‘evergreen’, meaning they can be used any time of year or perhaps for years to come. They are classic and timeless. Chief among these are……

….Details
Get lots of details. These are the visual metaphors that may punctuate a blog post or marketing piece in a more powerful way than can otherwise be done. These give a sense of your point but allow the audience to fill in the blanks. They aren’t specific to a person, a time, or a location and designers (web and print) love them because of their versatility and timelessness.
image library

Imperfect Shots and Unscripted Moments
I’m not suggesting that the only way you can build an image library is by hiring a professional photographer (like me or my ilk) or spending all of your time producing elaborate photo shoots. A carefully-managed, well thought-out campaign will include professionally-produced content where appropriate and will have a place for less-scripted, less technically perfect images taken by you, your staff, others in your organization, clients, or the public. Depending on your brand, this may be necessary. There should be a place for both.

Less is More
I love crafted, long-form films and videos. The reality is, even if Martin Scorcese produced your video, if it’s longer than three minutes I’d have a hard time watching it. One minute would be better. In fact, video snippets are sometimes the best of all. These short blurbs may get more engagement than longer ones and can be easily done, leading to more consistent content over time. So do video…but keep it super short, as in this behind-the-scenes clip that shows one of the hazards in making custom wooden baseball bats:

Behind the Scenes
Show us visuals that takes us places we wouldn’t normally go. Show us the secret sauce that makes it all work in your organization: the team members, the interactions, the tools, the back warehouse. Show us how the sausage is made, showing the care and the humanity that go into a great product or service.

Faces, People!
People love to see other people. Show them faces. If you make a product or sell a service, show us the faces and lives of the people whose lives are improved by your brand. Show us what your brand means reflected in the faces of your fans, customers, clients, or even your team members.

image library

Keep it Real
If your job is to promote your brand or company, then you can get caught up in your product or service features. Instead, let your visuals show your people, your products, your brand, out in the real world. That’s the one the rest of us inhabit. Some brands seem to lend themselves to this sort of approach, like Nike, but even law firms, hospitals, and others can do this. They just may have to be a bit more creative and less obvious–exactly the criteria needed to create interest and connection.

Crystal Williams, Boston University

April 25, 2018 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Client Work, Education, Portraits

Boston University

I had the pleasure of photographing poet Crystal Williams, just recently named as Boston University’s first associate provost for diversity and inclusion. Williams, previously a professor at Bates College in Lewiston, is a talented poet (here she is reading one of her powerful works).

The assignment was to photograph Williams with just a simple, plain background, relying purely on expression and pose to convey her personality. I love getting to know and work with people in this way. Here are a few of the images I liked most from our session, below.

Boston University