Storytelling – Words or Pictures?

I have always been a visual communicator.  For over 35 years I have been making a living taking photographs for magazines all over the world.  I have always “seen” the world and captured its stories through visuals.  Somehow, it was far easier for me to communicate with images than with words.  But it was also a bit frustrating for me because many times when I was photographing a person, I felt like I was leaving a portion of their story untold.

When I photograph people, invariably I spend a good deal of time talking and listening to them.  It’s this rapport that usually enables me to capture a more intimate photograph. For me, this has always been my favorite part of the “process”, yet I never had an outlet for my subjects’ words, other than through the captions of my photographs.

When I started producing documentaries, my conversations with my subjects finally had an outlet through their recorded interviews that became the backbone of the “script”.  Even though the script was not something that I wrote using my own words, I was instrumental in the process because I was selecting the words and giving them an order.  I was involved in the process and structure of screenwriting.

In recent years, I have become fascinated with story structure and screenwriting.  I have read numerous books on the topic of screenwriting and this past weekend I decided to immerse myself in an intensive 3-day workshop with John Truby.  John has taught some of the best screenwriters around.  I knew going into this, it was going to be a great and informative workshop, but I had no idea how rewarding it would be.  Essentially, John gave me knowledge of the “process” and the structure of storytelling to enable me to take an idea and turn it into a really good story.

I have come away from this workshop with a deeper understanding and respect for a well-written story.   We can all spot poor writing in a film.  It stands out.  Even the layman who knows nothing about “the process” or story structure can identify really bad writing.  The audience may not know why the story or the film doesn’t work – they just know it doesn’t and they’re not buying it.  Like any other craft, screenwriting has gone through stylistic changes over the years, but the fundamentals remain.  After all, telling stories is as old as time and there has always been a constant – and that is “the audience”.  Ultimately the audience will decide if a writer has done their job well.

I think those of us who are “content creators” in this era of multi-media communications need to broaden our understanding of all kinds of mediums in order to effectively communicate.  Many times, I see creatives become too narrowly focused on their one set of tools and in the process lose sight of their end goal  – and that is to deliver the message or story to the audience.  Ultimately, the audience will always let you know if you’ve hit the mark or not because they are looking at the “whole” and not the “parts” of the story.

Opportunities for Self-Initiated Projects

There seems to be a prevailing attitude of doom and gloom. We have an economy that can’t seem to turn itself around and we’re bombarded by change that technology continues to thrust upon us. We’re scared to death of the unknown and nobody seems to know what to do next and how to make any money doing it.

Yet, I’ve never been more hopeful in my life. Why?  Because I no longer need someone else to validate my ideas – and that is a powerful notion.  Those of us in the communication business seem to be particularly fearful. Some believe that the “news” business is dying because print publications – newspapers and magazines are folding every week.  But the “news” business is not dying – it’s just being delivered  in another way – electronically and globally.  There are no longer just a few gatekeepers with a lock on the playing field.

Human beings are social animals and we will always have the need to communicate with each other.  These days we can communicate with one another globally.  An idea or creation can be shared around the world in a matter of minutes.  Think of the power in that and think of how we can use that power and the opportunities it presents.  I could digress into a discussion on the ethics of this thought but I’d like to focus more on the reach and influence that each one of us has in creating awareness.

Many of us get enamored with the latest devices that enable us to deliver and receive information with speed and ease. As technology’s exponential growth continues to change our lives in every way imaginable, we will constantly be incorporating and upgrading new gadgets and devices as part of our lives.  We need to be mindful that these “toys” are merely enablers and that each one of us can use these tools to create and distribute our words, images, designs and ideas across the planet.

I think that we as creative’s or journalists underestimate ourselves sometimes.  Perhaps because we chose professions that aren’t lucrative – at least in terms of money.  However, what one is paid doesn’t necessarily correlate with one’s worth. We live in a time now where we can use our creative skills to really make a difference and to tell the stories that we feel need to be told. Mass communication has been democratized. We no longer need the traditional gatekeepers to validate our ideas.

I never would have dreamed that I would be able to circumvent the globe, create a documentary with only one other person in my crew  – my daughter and then distribute it internationally. I never imagined that I would have the power to create awareness on a global level like I did when I uploaded my trailer to Vimeo.  In less than a month after it was uploaded, that trailer has been played in almost half the countries on the planet.  Staggering thought.

This was not a commissioned project by a network or a motion picture studio. If I had waited for that – it never would have happened. I assigned myself.  I was able to fund it by using my airline points, hotel rewards and doing trades with manufacturers for equipment.  I also successfully raised money via Kickstarter a crowd funding site  that made it possible for me to hire a professional editor. My daughter and I have been building an audience  since we started blogging about our journey. Our readers got more and more engaged as they followed us on our 99-day adventure around the world. They spread the word through Facebook and Twitter and via their own blogs and pretty soon word of our project spread virally. That was precisely our goal.  To use our tools and skills to create a film about the change makers of our world so that others would be inspired and motivated as to what they can do.

I often think about how things in my life and in history would have been different if we had the Internet when I was growing up.  For starters it would have had a huge effect on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and the Vietnam War.  But everything happens in its own time and when it is meant to happen.  Change can be scary or it can be embraced and sometimes both at the same time.

Never stop dreaming. Never stop learning. Always listen to that inner voice.  Then use the means and the tools of the day to do the dance you are meant to do.

Mentors and Lessons Learned

I recently visited with one of my mentors, Adrian Taylor who had been instrumental in my career.  I met Adrian when he was art director at Travel & Leisure Magazine.  He had just taken that job and relocated to NYC from San Francisco where he had been based for almost 20 years.  My partner, Tom and I had just graduated from Brooks Institute and were young eager photographers when we met Adrian. Looking back, I think that meeting was perhaps the most instrumental and fortunate bit of fate in our beginning careers.

During our visit, Adrian started recanting his amazing stories of when he first got started as an art director.  He was also young and eager to learn, when Frank Zachary, editor of Holiday Magazine took him under his wing.  Adrian was reminiscing because Vanity Fair had just run a story about those early days of Holiday and the legendary writers and photographers who contributed to it at the time.  The contributors read like a who’s who:  John Steinbeck, Carier-Bresson, Slim Aarons, Fred Maroon, John Lewis Stage and so on.  At one point in referring to Zachary, Adrian said “he encouraged me.” Without missing a beat Tom replied, “That’s what you did for us too.”

I’ve been thinking about how important “encouragement” is for someone just starting out.  Learning technique and business tips from a mentor are very important things for young photographers to learn when first starting out, but I think perhaps the greatest gift a mentor can give is his or her encouragement.   If there were one thing that I can point to that I got from Adrian it would be just that.  He encouraged us to be the best we could be.  He believed in me so much that I couldn’t not believe in myself and that made me challenge myself and grow with every assignment.

Years later, I had a friend who became a mentor to me when I first started to write.  He too encouraged me.  At times he praised me and other times he was incredibly harsh with his comments, but I learned and I got better because of his encouragement.  He is no longer here, but his encouragement, as well as the lessons learned have played a part in my life. In fact, he gave me the courage to take on one of the most challenging projects of my life.

Mentors come and go in one’s life each making their own mark as they do.  If you should be so lucky to have people like this in your life, make sure you do one thing – take the time to make an impact on someone else’s life.  You never know what will come of that but no doubt it will make a difference, not only in that person’s life, but in your own as well.

We Are All Broadcasters

Back in the early1960’s, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement the world watched as violence and hatred played out every night on TV.  A few years later, we watched the horrors of the Vietnam War taking place on the other side of the globe, from the comfort of our living rooms. Those broadcasts made an indelible mark on me at the time, growing up in my fairly sheltered life in suburbia.  They opened my eyes to the world and I took it all in.

Yesterday, a tragic bombing occurred during the Boston Marathon that took the lives of three people and injured dozens more.  Seconds, after the first of the two bombs went off, everyone who was connected to the Internet, immediately knew what had happened, regardless of where they were in the world.  Photos, video and sound recordings went viral – globally and instantly.  Along with the “bonified” news broadcasts transmitted in real time, rumor and speculation spread instantly as well.

In the 50 plus years that have gone by since those early days of “live” news coverage, bringing “awareness” into our homes, technology continues to impact our lives in a profound way.  We are connected globally and there’s no turning back that clock.  We are no longer isolated from what is taking place anywhere and everywhere on the planet.

We are all collective participants. We can tweet, blog, post images and video on Facebook and numerous other social media platforms without really needing anyone’s validation, permission or vetting whatsoever.  Think of the power in that.  It gives everyone a voice on a global scale.  But along with that comes responsibility. It used to be that if you saw something written in a newspaper or heard it on the evening nightly news on TV, it was true and you could believe it.  But now what do we do?  How can we decipher and determine what we see and hear online is true and accurate? Ultimately, we need to make those judgments ourselves.

I’ve been thinking about this all morning, and I can only hope that as we become more connected through technology, that we start to embrace our similarities as human beings, instead of being split apart by our differences.  For those of us who are documenting the world through images and video, whether professionally or not, we are broadcasting on a global scale, on a daily basis.  Think about the power of that and the responsibility.

6 Ways Video has Made Me a Better Photographer

Lately, I’m finding that I “get the job” because I know how to shoot video. What’s odd is that these are still photography assignments and I was NOT hired to shoot video, but because I knew how to shoot video. What I’ve discovered is that many clients love the “eye” of the “hybrid”.

I’ve been thinking about what is it about the “eye of a hybrid” that clients are finding attractive.  In a nutshell, it’s the eye of a master storyteller.  That’s because the medium of video is the perfect medium for telling a story. It encompasses movement, action, pace, rhythm and sound to engage, entice and feel.

I got a call this week for an editorial still photo assignment.  As usual, there was the customary business paperwork, but the client also provided a “shot list”.  I’ve been shooting editorial assignments for over 35 years and have had all kinds of direction. Sometimes, I’m given a writer’s manuscript and I’ve come up with my own shot list and sometimes I’m just told to come up with a variety of images.  But this “shot list” was intriguing because it read more like a shooting script for a video project.  As I read through the list, I could see how the person who had written it – had the “eye of a hybrid”.

Here are some of the suggested shots and “direction” from the list they provided:

(This is how I think and shoot in video. It has made me a better still photographer)

Cover it – Get comprehensive coverage – different perspectives, focal lengths, wide, medium and close-ups.  When I shoot video I will get a variety of angles as well as a variety of focal lengths because I know I will need plenty of b-roll to work with when editing the story together.

Get sequences – Get a variety of mini stories with people interacting. I am accustomed to thinking about how my “shots” will come together as part of the whole video that I’m working on.  Now, I approach a still editorial assignment like this as well. It’s kind of like of a moving pagination of imagery in my head.

Get storytelling images – With still photography I need to make sure those independent shots or moments in time also tell a story and stand on their own.  They can’t just be “wowy zowy” photos as Bob Gilka of the National Geographic used to say when I showed him an eye grabbing and colorful, abstract image.

Action/motion – make the images “feel”.  One that that motivated me to start exploring motion was because I was finding that it was difficult for me to convey the feeling of motion in a still image.  I’m finding that it’s easier for me to convey movement in a still image now because my eye is trained to look for it.

Give the images sound – (like a hammer hammering).  Natural sound gives a video the element of reality.  It’s almost like it gives the video a well-needed extra layer or dimension.  When I’m shooting still images, I look for images that will illustrate the “sound” of an environment.

Shoot more – Give me more to choose from.  Again, you can never have enough b-roll when you are shooting video so I have naturally started shooting more on still photography shoots and my clients love having the abundance of choice.

What’s Your End Goal?

Do you ever feel stuck – like you just can’t quite make it to the finish line?  This can happen for a number of reasons – your plan wasn’t well thought through – your perfectionism has stopped you – you don’t see the big picture or you can’t break down the details – or maybe you never had a goal to begin with.

The one thing I try to do whenever I think about embarking on a project is to define my end goal – “What are my expectations?”  When I make myself think about my end goal, it forces me to clearly define it.  This allows me to assess my underlying motivations, cut out the chaff and move forward to stay on target and reach the finish line.

Sounds simple, but the problems arise when I let other people sidetrack me from my original goal.  For example: when I was working on the trailer for              Opening Our Eyes, I posted my work in progress on Vimeo and shared it with friends and colleagues.  Many people offered up advice and solutions according to how they wanted  to see the story to unfold.  Some suggested that my daughter and I (the filmmakers) should be more present in the trailer and in the film itself.  Some thought we shouldn’t be in it at all.  At one point I started to incorporate everyone’s suggestions and ended up with a trailer that was neither here nor there.  I had lost sight of my own end goal and I needed to step back from the edit, the technology and the influence and ask myself  “What is it I’m trying to say?”

Well intentioned people in our life can easily distract us from our own purpose and before you know it you’re not living the life you are meant to live and you can’t understand why you’re not getting anywhere.  When this has happened in my life’s journey, it’s usually taken something “bad” or “good” to take place, that stops me in my tracks and makes me step back from the noise and ask myself “What is my end goal? – Where is it I’m trying to get to?”  I don’t always have a clear answer but at least I’ve taken notice of the question.

I think that’s the key – to take notice of how you’re living your life and if you are on the right path.  Goals come and go and it’s all those little unexpected surprises that life throws at you that determine the outcome.  We can’t control everything in our lives but we can take notice of where we are going and ask ourselves “Is that the destination we are bound for?”

I Don’t Want to be the Smartest One in the Room

My mom used to tell me, “You don’t want to buy the nicest house on the block.” She didn’t just say it when I was buying real estate, but used it as an analogy when she was dispensing other words of wisdom.  Maybe that’s why I grew up not wanting to be the “smartest person in room.”

When I was very young, I used to create characters that I wanted to hang out with.  One was my imaginary friend Peteso who was a “newspaper boy” in China, doing dare devil stunts on his bicycle as he delivered his papers.  There were plenty of others, each one bringing something exciting to my more mundane life of a typical 5 year old child.

By the time I got out of college, I had traveled the world, building all sorts of relationships with people from many different cultures who had broadened my mind as to how I saw the world and myself.  I gravitated toward people who were NOT like me.

When I first began my career as a photographer, I had the great fortune of having  an incredible art director, Adrian Taylor as my mentor.  Adrian had a colorful career as an art director for magazines like Holiday (the original) and Travel & Leisure, which is how I connected with him.  Adrian took my partner Tom and I under his wing when we were first starting out.  He encouraged us by believing in us and he made me always want to put everything I had into an assignment and improve with each one.

We learned a lot from Adrian, but perhaps one of his greatest gifts was to include us in lunches, dinners and parties with some of the best photographers of that time – Arnold Newman, Slim Aarons, Pete Turner, Al Satterwhite, John Lewis Stage, Fred Maroon and countless others.  Being in the room or literally “at the table” with these legends and listening to their stories and advice was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. What I learned from these photographers is the kind of stuff you don’t learn at a photography school.  And it wasn’t necessarily things like business tips or photographic technique.  They talked about their passion and their ideas and it awakened me to the possibilities within myself.

I’ve been preparing a presentation that I’ll be doing for ASMP at the NAB Show (National Association of Broadcasters) next week. As much as I’m grateful to be able to share my knowledge at this prestigious conference, I have to remind myself that it’s only possible because I’ve lived my life, putting myself in situations and environments where there are people who are much smarter than me.  In fact, for me the best part of NAB is to sit in on some of the panel discussions with the movers and shakers of the industry and listen to what they’re talking about.

These days, when I fantasize, I no longer create make believe characters to hang out with.  Instead I imagine myself at a table, having a discussion with people who intrigue me on some level and expand my mind to a place it hasn’t gone before. And then I set out to make my fantasy come true.

Abundance or Scarcity – What’s Your Choice?

I read Seth Godin’s blog this morning and as usual, he was right on target with his observations of our culture and the shift in our economy.  We are moving out of the “industrial age”, an economy based on scarcity and into a “connection economy” based on abundance – abundance of  “choice, connections and access to knowledge.”

In our new “connection economy”, we can connect with more people and “leverage our skills at a higher level.” This is leading to two races:  a race to the bottom which is forcing us to lower our prices, because it’s easy to find plenty of people who will do something cheaper or a race to the top which gives us the opportunity to use our new connections, resources and knowledge and become the one “they can’t live without.”

“The connection economy doesn’t create jobs where we get picked and then get paid; the connection economy builds opportunities for us to connect, and then demands that we pick ourselves.”  It’s no longer sufficient to just deliver a job at a fair price; a “connection economy” is all about standing out and being remarkable.

We need to invent – not duplicate.

So how do we stand out in a world of noise?  I believe we need to be authentic and true to ourselves.  We need to take the ultimate risk and listen to that voice inside because that’s the voice that should be heard.  We need to be vulnerable in order to race to the top.  At the end of the day, we are all human and we can spot a phony or an imitation when we see one.

Most of all we need to remember, we are human beings with basic human needs  – one being the need to connect with our fellow human. We don’t connect merely on devices alone – you connect by telling your “story”.   If your story resonates with others – it spreads. Today that means it gains traction quickly and spreads globally.  But you don’t connect with people by doing the same things as everyone else or regurgitating the same information.  You make connections because people are human and they’ll always spot “the real deal” in a crowd.

So be vulnerable, be different, be brave enough to stand out with a fresh approach to old problems and you won’t need to race to the bottom along with others clamoring for those “scarce” jobs.  You’ll be the one carving out the opportunities and picking yourself.

How Video Has Helped My Still Photography Business

After a slow spell, which I can’t say I ever get used to after 30 plus years of freelancing, the phone started ringing.  The calls were all in regards to still photography assignments.  Having been a still photographer for most of my life, that wasn’t unusual, but what was interesting was that I beat out my competition – other still photographers – because I knew video.

Times have sure changed. When I started exploring the medium of video, over 15 years ago, I didn’t abandon my still photography – I simply added another skill set.  Most of my clients over the years have hired me to shoot one or the other, and sometimes both.  But what I see happening now is that as print moves to electronic delivery, my still photographic clients are also looking for a “photographer” that can shoot video components on a still photography assignment.  They need multimedia content for mobile devices and online platforms that cry out for movement and sound.

I don’t think of myself as a “still photographer” or a “videographer”.  First of all, I absolutely hate the word videographer because it smacks of a dated notion of what video used to be.  I think of myself as an “imaging professional” or sometimes a “new media producer” or sometimes just a “storyteller” because that’s what I do – I tell a client’s story, or deliver their message to their targeting audience.  I don’t define myself by the tool I use.

With convergence happening not only in the cameras we shoot with but in the media we create, I will opt for the “tool” or camera(s) that enable me to tell the story I need to tell, in the best way possible.  I’ve been thinking that way since I first forayed into video.  It’s nice to know that now my clients are thinking that way too.

Creating Inspiration

I’ve gotten away from writing lately, maybe because I’ve been really busy, and maybe because I’ve felt uninspired.  That’s a terrible feeling for me, it’s as if I’m void of any “feeling” at all.  It tends to happen when I’m spending more time doing the things I don’t want to do instead of what I feel I’m here to be doing.

When I woke up this morning I thought, “anything can happen today”.  That thought in it self makes me want to get out of bed. I start thinking about the endless possibilities that can happen on any given day.  I grabbed a cup of coffee, checked my email and read Seth Godin’s blog and it was like it was written for me.  It was called “The moment of highest leverage”.  He was talking about moments when you’ve either lost something or won – when it feels hopeless or when it appears to be a lock.  He said that these were the times you can choose to do what’s in your heart and bring your real work to the world, instead of the lesser version that you think the market wants.

I’ve been struggling with feelings of hopelessness after a slew of rejections and misses. I knew I needed two things:  a change of scenery and some insightful conversation.  I went to Hawaii on impulse and got both.  One day, my good friend PF Bentley was showing me the “film” that he made for National Geographic photographer Dewitt Jones.  Dewitt has been shooting extraordinary images for the Natl. Geo for over 40 years and he had hired PF to create inspirational corporate training videos.    The “film” segments were a combination of Dewitt speaking about his life and his career in an inspirational way and b-roll of him shooting in beautiful Hawaiian settings interwoven with his amazing still images.   The piece was so touching; it brought tears to my eyes.  When it was over I started crying and I apologized to PF.  He said, “that’s ok, I know I’ve done my job right”.  PF and Dewitt had done theirs jobs right and they had inspired me.

I’ve had two speaking engagements and a screening of Opening Our Eyes this past weekend and in each situation, I was feeling good and that I had something to say and to share.  It must have come across because at each venue there was at least one person who I inspired – I could tell – I could feel it.  There was one woman at the screening, who had found out about it through one of our subject’s blog, Maggie Doyne. After the movie was over and most people had gone, I talked to her for a long time and I could see that the film had inspired her greatly.  I knew that I had done my job right and it was the best feeling in the world.  It reminded me of what is most important to me in my life and that is to create awareness with my still images or movies and move people or inspire them.

I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook these days but I was looking at my news feed at the end of that long weekend and I noticed a photo that Ethan Browne (Jackson Browne’s son) had posted on his page.  It was a photograph of Jackson with one of his fans and Ethan had commented underneath it  “proud of   my pops – he stokes people for a living”.  I smiled and I thought, “That’s what I want to do”.