Photo full circle with United Way Day of Caring event
It’s always wonderful seeing a project come full circle. That happened this weekend when a pro-bono photo project we’ve been helping to drive came to fruition. On Saturday, the Lake Norman/Mooresville United Way held its annual Day of Caring volunteer event. We got involved several months ago to spearhead the communications work. Here are some of the images. For anyone interested in seeing more, I’ll post the link to the entire gallery at the end.
Several hundred volunteers showed up to spend the morning landscaping public spaces, handing out food at the Mooresville Christian Mission food pantry, working on Habitat for Humanity houses and more. So much more.
My photo team jumped from work project to work project in order to capture volunteers in action. The United Way will use the photos to drive excitement for next year’s event and to help tell stories about how the United Way helps in the Lake Norman community.
A few take aways I can share about the photography… Being involved throughout the event planning process gave me the chance to help shape a visually attractive event. We pushed for bright t-shirts and the colorful logo.
Notice there isn’t a date on the t-shirt. Avoiding the date was last-minute advice that will keep the photos evergreen. Imagine wanting to use these photos to advertise a 2017 Day of Caring event. Someone would have to PhotoShop the 2013 date away. Now they don’t have to.
See the full gallery here: http://patrickschneider.photoshelter.com/gallery/CSR-event-photography-of-the-2013-United-Way-Day-of-Caring/G0000mrwv66tz4V4
Tiffany Eubanks-Saunders, sr vice president Bank of America
Portrait-palooza
Coming off a two-week stretch of back-to-back corporate portraits reminded me of the fun — and frustrations — of executive portraits.
On one hand, shooting corporate environmental portraits really gets my creative juices going. I start each assignment questioning the most-important story my client wants to tell. This is the fun part… especially when I can push the envelope or think outside the box.
Brett Carter, senior vice president Duke Energy
Frustrations? These can be a lengthy list, topped off with uber-busy business executives who arrive saying “you have five minutes to photograph me… and they began three minutes ago” to skittish security guards who nix location requests because the images might “be used to help advance security threats.” Really?
My recent photo subjects were great to work with, especially those times we had to work in public spaces (it’s never easy to have your portrait made while people are looking at you).
But schedules were tight and we had to work quickly. All told, I easily spent more time hauling in gear from the downtown Charlotte parking garages and setting up lights than actually photographing my subjects. Nonetheless, the frustrations add to the challenge of making photos that support creative corporate communications. And that’s why I love being a corporate photojournalist.
Check out this sampling of my most-recent executive portraits.
We photographed Brett Carter at the top of the Duke Tower in downtown Charlotte. I’ve always liked how the architectural lines of the space really enhance the visual interest of the images taken in that area.
Sonya Dukes, senior vice president of Wells Fargo, wasn’t at all phased by the non-stop foot traffic passing by just a few feet away. I asked to photograph Sonya in this hallway because I liked how the bright panels complemented her attire.
Another view of the colorful hallway and Sonya Dukes.
Although we had only about 20 minutes to make Sonya’s portrait, we jumped over to the Wells Fargo atrium area in order to capture a second look (and to help the designer with more options).
Francisco Alvarado, owner and CEO of Marand Builders Inc., a general contractor firm serving the southeast.
Vinay Patel, president and CEO of SREE Hotels.
Vinay Patel, president and CEO of SREE Hotels.
Louis Romero, owner of Network Cabling Systems
Louis Romero, owner of Network Cabling Systems
Tiffany Eubanks-Saunders, senior vice president at Bank of America
Tiffany Eubanks-Saunders, senior vice president at Bank of America.
What the heck is corporate storytelling anyway?
Our last post touched on what visual storytelling isn’t. [Find that post here]
Now the much-harder question of what it is. In the 1960s, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was asked to describe his threshold test for obscenity. He said: I can’t describe what it is, “but I know it when it see it.” Perhaps the same thing can be said for storytelling photography.
In many ways, visual storytelling can be defined not for what appears within the photo, but rather for the feelings and emotions the photo evokes. Does the photo make you stop and pause to figure out what’s going on? Or do you quickly click through to get to the other items on your must-do list?
Stories get told when photographers make images that go beyond what’s obvious and expected. Like here, instead of the expected people-at-table-making-announcement photo, this wide-angle shot puts the event in context. Notice all of the corporate branding.
Or this side angle, which carefully includes the stacked-up boxes to make readers wonder what might be inside. (They’re stuffed with donated school supplies).
And who wouldn’t look twice at the employee newsletter to see which of their co-workers dressed up like superheroes to race Red Radio Flyer tricycles for a good cause.
Next blog: What makes one storytelling photo better than another? Hint… think branding.
How to engage with corporate storytelling
Lately, every time I turn around, my corporate clients are talking about corporate storytelling. It seems their bosses — and their bosses’ bosses — heard somewhere that storytelling is a great way to engage employees. It’s true, I say. And then we all nod our heads in agreement.
But then the other day, a new-ish corporate communications professional pulled me aside and asked, “But what exactly is corporate storytelling?” Trying to figure out what her peers were talking about, this young internal communications manager had searched the Web for examples and explanations of how to leverage storytelling in the business environment… but she had found very little.
Looks like storytelling is one of those things that everybody secretly thinks they are really good at. Unfortunately, the ability to tell stories is also one of those things that few people are really good at.
So let me take a moment (and maybe a few blog posts) to explain what corporate storytelling is — and what it isn’t. Later, in another blog post, I’ll give my 2 cents on how to find a storytelling writer, photographer, multimedia developer or whatnot and make the most of his/her talents.
First the easy part: What corporate storytelling photography ISN’T. It’s not the:
~ Execution at dawn photo, with team members lined up against a wall and “shot.”
~ Grape leaves photo. Similar to the execution at dawn photo, but here the team members have their hands clasped together in front of their groins in Adam-and-Eve-grape-leaf fashion.
~ Important person with oversized check photo.
~ Employee at work photo, where the obviously posed worker looks self conscious as he/she avoids looking at the camera.
~ Giant-scissor-yielding executive about to cut the giant ribbon photo.
Boring, right? But damaging too. A corporate Webpage, newsletter or annual report with a boring photo is worse than not having a photo at all. Why? Because the reader’s eye is drawn to the photo first. Therefore, a boring photo = boring story = boring event. Yawn.
Now the hard part… defining what a storytelling photo is. I’ll tackle that one in another posting.
P.S.: Are you wondering what’s going on in the image at the top of the post? Excellent! That’s a piece of storytelling photography. A photo should make readers look twice and study what’s going on. In this case, musicians perform among museum statues during the Wells Fargo Community Celebration event held in downtown Charlotte, NC.
You can check out the photos from this and other corporate-sponsored events at http://patrickschneider.photoshelter.com/gallery/Wells-Fargo-Community-Celebration/G0000x2v_e86hR00/C0000sLejZ1oE1sY
corporatephotojournalist 