We were lucky to catch up with Joel Harris recently and have shared our conversation below.

Joel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with talking about how you serve the underserved, because in our view this is one of the most important things the small business community does for society – by serving those who the giant corporations ignore, small business helps create a more inclusive and just world for all of us.

I had no intention of getting into this field of photography, but I’ve always been about keeping an open mind. So when I was contacted by the Army Sniper Association to assist them in coverage of military events and competitions, I was a bit surprised, but excited for the challenge.
The Association was in the process of reorganizing, and mainly needed new photographs for their portfolio, but I saw an opportunity to serve the underserved.
The event they wanted me to cover was the year’s International Sniper Competition, which involved elite and special forces soldiers from numerous US military branches as well as several NATO allies, including Israel, UK, Sweden, Ireland, Netherlands, Denmark, and several others coming together in Ft. Benning, GA to both learn from one another and compete for the title of best sniper over the course of a week of grueling, non-stop events.

Now these guys do amazing things, things that their families never really get to see. They might have any number of ribbons, awards, commendations, or whatever else, but my mind just kept repeating that a picture is worth a thousand words.
For those who aren’t in the military, the ribbons are pretty colors and the plaques give us a few stiff words, but to see a photo of your loved one in action… it makes any distance more tolerable and provides a bit more context.
Plus, it’s a treasure that will be looked back on with pride.
Most soldiers never get any kind of photos of themselves doing what they do beyond maybe a handful of snapshots, so I made sure to write into my contract with the Association that I would be able to provide photos to the competitors and their families.
Now mind you, this is the military we’re dealing with, so a lot of things end up more complicated than they really need to be, but we secured all the proper permissions, and when the first day of the event came, I can’t say that I was really ready for what was going to happen, but I knew that I wasn’t going to drop this opportunity.

So, I was not met warmly by the soldiers. I was looked at with outright suspicion. But they didn’t yet know my mission, that I was there for them, and not just another lazy Public Affairs Officer looking to take one or two snapshots and maybe catch them doing something they shouldn’t.
No, I was there to make them look as badass as humanly possible.

We did team photos, lunch, some symposiums, a naming ceremony, etc, but then the event started.
And I was right there with them, running, behind the firing lines, sleep deprived and exhausted. I didn’t flinch at the gunfire, the blasts of artillery didn’t phase me any more than them. We averaged 2-3hrs of sleep each night, if we were lucky, and then we went again.
They knew I wasn’t a public affairs officer now.
I was something different, I was there with them, I was there for them.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I inherited a Canon A-1 (a professional grade 35mm film camera) at the age of 9, and ever since then, photography has been a dominating force in my life. Now I didn’t know how to handle it real well to start, so I visited the library and read every book that I could on the specific camera and photography in general, but there’s really only so much you can learn alone, especially back in those dark ages before the internet.
So when a man named John McCoy offered to take me under his wing, I was ecstatic. He was a gruff fellow, but he was a military photographer during the Vietnam War and taught me to look at the world in a totally different way.
Lighting, angles, and stay out of the way!
He was all about candid photography; Capturing those authentic moments and intervening as little as possible. There was a great deal of philosophy in addition to the technical in his teaching, and I absorbed it all like a sponge.

I’ve grown since my time with Mr. McCoy, but his lessons still resonate with me to this day.
One of the biggest ones was this:
You have to fall in love with your subject.
Every. Single. Time.
Otherwise, you will never do it justice. You’ll just have another flat snapshot, an uninspired image that will quickly be forgotten.

I am not a center stage person, I am not an “influencer.” I don’t care about having a huge following; Most of my business is done in an old school way. That is… actually talking to people.
I am a creator who’s greatest joy is in supporting others, bringing out the best in them, and capturing authentic moments that will be treasured forever.
I possess a deep desire to please and want people to see themselves in a way that they maybe never have before.
When you are in front of my lens, everything else falls away; you become my entire world. You are beauty. You are grace. You are everything.

That doesn’t stop when the camera goes back into the bag. Developing your images then become my life’s mission. I want you to say Wow, over, and over again with every finished image, and with every interaction.
I build lifelong relationships. I become an ally in the trenches and will forever fight for your interests, your dreams, your hopes, your desires.

When you invest in me, I in turn invest my entire heart and soul into you.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Easily being on the ground with my clients. In such a digital world, it is easy to hide behind a computer screen and put out amazing content, but never gain any traction. I did this for years when I was focused primarily on landscape photography.

With the advancements of technology the market has become oversaturated with “Photographers” as it is now easier than it ever has been for anyone to pick up a camera or even a cell phone and claim the title.
A need for technical knowledge of the craft is pretty much gone as devices will automatically select all of the settings for you.
But this doesn’t make great photos. People make great photos.
And it is a person far more than a photographer that people are looking to work with.
You can take amazing photographs, but if you lack empathy, are rude, inconsiderate, or refuse to follow instructions, you’re probably not going to get as much work as sweet Sally-Joe that’s just an absolute pleasure to be around.

I do not have large social media followings, but nearly every follower I have across all of my accounts was organically gained by real, in-person, human interaction.

If you just like having big numbers on your page, that’s easy.
You can buy them. But if you like having real relationships with real people who will provide repeat business, then there’s no substitute for genuine human interaction.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

14,000 pictures later, the International Sniper Competition ended, I made the 9 hour drive back to the house and sat down and started the real work. The first step for me is organizing. For this I used the format of competition name-> day number-> event name/location -> team.
Yes, it was a lot, and no, I did not cull first. I shot the event in such a way that I was able to… mostly… keep things organized by file numbers. So for example, Images 500-551 were team so and so on day so and so.
So while tedious and a challenge, because of a little bit of foresight, it wasn’t the absolute trainwreck that it could have been.

But, I did notice problems with images as I was organizing.
A lot of them were overexposed. So big sigh, not ideal, but still manageable. It was just going to be a lot more work to develop.

By the way, I haven’t mentioned that I didn’t get paid to come over the even yet. My entire payday relied on my ability to produce a high enough quality product that the competitors would want to purchase them. More on that later.

So next came culling, which is basically getting rid of images that don’t make the cut for one reason or another. Out of focus, bad framing, bad exposure, etc.

It’s not the most efficient, but when I’m culling, I go through each image individually and make a decision. But because everything is already organized and broken down into more bite sized chunks, it is a much easier process to digest. I worked from the individual team folders, which there were 30 teams spread out over 4 days across 2-3 main events per day, so that made for about 200 folders in their most broken down form to go through, each holding about 50-150 images.

It makes progress easier to see and forced me to keep in mind how many images I was leaving the competitors in each event, as I wanted the final albums to be a good representation from across the entire competition, and they were to be catered specifically to each team.

So that took 3 days.
Next came the actual development process. I worked at least 18hrs per day for about 2 1/2 weeks before I was finished, and it was hell.
I sat in a chair and worked until I physically couldn’t stay awake anymore, every single day. And then about 4-5 days into development, my computer died. And then, when I got the new one, it turns out the color accuracy of my old computer’s screen was waaaaay off, so I had to completely start over.

But I was determined to do the best work possible for these guys. They deserved it and I wasn’t going to let them down.
There were so many points that it would have been far easier to allow myself to become overwhelmed and to just give up, but I knew what I was doing mattered and that these soldiers would really treasure these photos. Nobody had ever done anything like this for them before, and as the first, I wouldn’t fail.

And I didn’t. I gritted my teeth and knuckled down. I refused to give up. And as a result I still managed to release everything a week ahead of schedule and had an amazing response from the competitors with more than 70% of participants making a purchase.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.GlassImagePhotos.com
• Instagram: @GlassImagePhotos
• Facebook: facebook.com/GlassImagePhotos

Image Credits
Joel Harris :: Glass Image Photos