Several years ago I went to gallery opening. It could have been Saturday night in the art district of any American city. But it wasn't New York, San Francisco, Birmingham, Richmond, Houston or Dallas. It was Temple, Texas. And the gallery was in Temple's First Baptist Church.

Still it was an opening in the truest sense. Wood floors, warm walls, generous lighting set the stage for simply framed photographs spaced precisely about the room. People with plates of finger food circled the exhibit featuring the lifework of an internationally known artist while a string ensemble and keyboard played beneath the murmur of quiet conversation.

All that was missing was the wine.

The exhibit featured the work of Don Rutledge. His photography documented the work of Southern Baptist missions for more than 30 years. It was elegant, beautiful, and recognized in both the secular and religious arenas. He helped make the Southern Baptist publications he served - MissionsUSA and theCommission - become internationally recognized for their use of photography and the visual impact of their storytelling.

Among the crowd gathered that evening were many admirers, people who had followed Don's work through the years and others who he had photographed while on assignment in far-flung corners of the world. There was also a smaller group - some of the photographers he had mentored over those years.

There is a whole cadre of them working today that Don nurtured and encouraged. No one knows how many, but four of us showed up that night. We were very different - a fine art photographer, a commercial shooter, a photojournalist and a news photographer - yet as we talked it was clear all four of us owed much of how we have lived our lives and the quality of the work we have done to this man who cared enough show some interest and invest something of himself in us.

Don touched our lives. At crucial moments he lit the way for us, nudged us along on our tottering careers, encouraged us when we were most vulnerable, saw things in us we often didn't see ourselves and taught us the intangibles of the craft at moments we needed them most.

People sought him out, and he sought them. I remember studying his work long before I met him. I was struggling with my calling, how I was going to express it and where that was going to be. I would look at his work and think: That's what I want to do. Later, when he saw some of my work, he wrote me a note telling me that he liked it. It was like winning a Pulitzer.

I soon learned he was one of the most approachable and giving men I have ever met. I once asked him to critique a project I was working on and he sent it on to the director of photography at National Geographic to review. That was Don.

For me, most of his mentoring was at a distance. I finally got to work with him before he retired, the last year he was at the International Mission Board, and see something of the scope of his involvement in others.

Beginning photographers would wander in and Don would spend incredible amounts of time with them. To be honest, some didn't evidence much promise and I would wonder at the effort he put into them. But later, they would return with some rather elegant work. On other days, some of the best photographers working today would stop by and Don would invite his colleagues into the conversation. Those days opened worlds I had yet to consider.

While Don was never an editor or department director, I learned from him that leadership is more a function of influence than title. The evidence of Don's influence is seen, not in the recognition he received or the friends he kept, but in the lives he touched.

When someone asks me how to become better in their craft, I tell them to keep good company. Find a mentor:

• Study the work of those you admire and would most like to emulate. Take it apart. See what makes it work.
• Contact them. Ask how they do what they do and why they do what they do. You will be surprised how often they will respond.
• Go see them.
• Invest in yourself by allowing them to invest in you.
• And when you have mastered some things yourself, become a mentor. Do the same for others.

Standing in the midst of Don's images that evening - the signature of his lifetime - I thought about his legacy. It would be fitting enough if he were remembered for those images alone. But his legacy extends far beyond them. It lives on in the lives he touched, those he mentored, the ones who allowed him to mentor them.

Bill Bangham is director, editorial and photography, for the International Mission Board in Richmond, Va.

Additional Don Rutledge Coverage by Stanley Leary, Aug. 2007: How to Make the Most of a Mentor