I wanted some bright colors to help make my book pop. Then I thought I could use some motion, too. And tight shots of the wardrobe. And not another white girl. There were a lot of things I wanted to add to my book in one shoot. I'd like to think we got it.
After work was an event to promote the Guitar God/Hero/Legend issue coming up, so we went. LV was loud to get the crowd going and make the advertisers think we're all really enthusiastic about Microsoft. (I think that was my favorite thing I asked LV to cheer about.)
The event was at Spotlight Live in Times Square, so this is where I was when I found out my best friend had just delivered her second baby girl.
Then I sang on stage. I would have dedicated it to the new baby, but I sang "More Than Words," and that would have been weird.
I had to go into Midtown to find more accessories for my upcoming shoot. Rather than wait for LV in front of his office, I went to Midtown Comics and then Toys R Us. Reem Acra Bride Barbie seemed like a much more fitting bride for LV's Mattel Superman than the generic blonde he's currently paired with on our shelf at home (I don't have any pictures here), so I took a picture of the Reem Acra display doll. Yay, picture for the day.
I realized that I was never going to finish the picture book for my friend that I was going to make as a thanks-for-being-my-matron-of-honor gift before I saw her again. (It should have been done July 2007...) So, I decided to make gifts for her babies instead. And a bag for myself.
The original idea for "dinosaur girly" came from a dream that LV had where we were selling T-shirts under a label by that name. The logo for the label was based on a drawing that I made in a "class" where Scrappy taught me to draw a dinosaur. Later we decided that Dinosaur Girly would be the name for a lot of things, like a design firm.
Cafe Press had a sale for shopkeepers. You could buy your own merchandise at a discount. I quickly designed some shirts and onesies and bibs and a bag. I placed the order.
I went to get my taxes done. I was in quite a foul mood afterward.
Then, either due to my day with the tax man or the enormous sugar rush I was coming down from, I couldn't help but burst into tears when I couldn't locate my Cafe Press package. Someone hadn't stolen my stuff--they had gifts for babies. Babies! Personalized for babies! Who does that...
Apparently no one.
I missed the delivery by about 10 minutes and someone thought to pick the package up from where the mailman left it. Though, this same person didn't think to come tell me they had my package any of the four times I was searching around the outside of the house hysterically.
Too much Easter candy is baaaaaad.
Cafe Press didn't question what happened to my package. No signature was required and I probably still sounded hysterical when I called customer service. They sent another one immediately. Now I have two of everything I ordered. Well, until I give it away.
The Easter Bunny left a trail of candy from Scrappy's room all around the house. She didn't quite understand to follow it into the armoire where he hid her basket with more candy and a DVD and all that nonsense that goes with Second Christmas.
Yeah, I think the cup says it all.
The Bunny even looked out for the little cats, getting them a wind-up chick and a wind-up bunny. Neither was really a hit. I think I like them more than anyone else.
This is Streaky not caring about the wind-up toys and enjoying the early morning sunshine.
We actually all ate eggs this year--not just me.
Why just color hard boiled eggs when you can really say something...?
Scrappy storms through coloring her eggs. Basketball games and intricate designs do not distract her.
How LV keeps an eye on his standings...
How Cupid keeps an eye on what we're doing...
How Titi Julie's egg looked after Scrappy dropped it on the floor and then ate it...
How we discovered I can sing "More than Words"...
Why hang out on top of the G3 when you can climb into the garbage? Streaky likes paper. Especially recycled paper.
That's a beer cup being thrown around the crowd on the floor. You would think this was a really kick-ass time right? I still can't remember the name of the band. The best part of the night was getting to see a bunch of people I didn't expect to see that night. (People who also couldn't remember the name of the band.)
LV was my hand model that night. Here he is holding a beer. The last time we went to get a drink, we lost our spots on the railing. These are the shoes of the guys who jumped on those spots.
This is one of the guy's who is blocking my view. I'm assuming he was fixing an ear plug and not scooping earwax, but you never know. Either one was not something I needed to see from the guy blocking my view. LV models again as we make our exit from the show.
Hard Rock has really good lighting. I don't think I fully appreciated it until I shot at other venues. That night I appreciated it, and then we went to get dinner.
I wanted a longer, more-tunic-y shirt to wear to my sister-in-law's birthday party, so I quickly hit the local stores. I didn't find anything for me, but there was a little Mr. Men shirt for pets. "Mr. Noisy" was perfect for how the cats have been acting lately. They didn't dig it. This is Streaky rolling over, hoping the shirt will go away. That pretty much sums up their reaction.
In keeping with my new "I can drive in the city" mentality, we rented a car to get to the dinner. I liked the lighting.
Shortly after LV said that I should be taking a picture every day (I had just shown him and some friends how I spent my day pasting a picture onto every page of my day-planner), I had something worth shooting. See the "M"? See the score? I don't bowl that well... Crazy.
See the "M"? See the score? That's about how I normally bowl. In the game after this, I bowled a 95. It all has to do with what music is playing, how well I can see the arrows on the floor (not possible during Cosmic Bowling at some lanes), how much I'm paying attention to the ball instead of the people at the next table... Some of the many reasons I knew I shouldn't pursue a professional athletic career.
Lucky me, the night also turned into a fashion shoot.
Three locations in Manhattan. With a truckload of rental equipment. And no assistant. Oh, and it's pouring rain.
LV went with me to go get the rental car. (Why pay to keep it over night if I don't have to?) The bus ride was quick. We found the lot much more easily this time. The car still reeked of smoke, but I didn't see the need to call and complain about this. Tuesday, Zip would let me know that smoking is not allowed in their vehicles.
Two pairs of shoes? Maybe just extra socks? Should I bring extra pants? Extra umbrellas? These were my last minute thoughts. I took my coffee, even though I knew I wouldn't drink it (when was I going to have time to go to the bathroom in the next 18 hours?), hopped in the car, and hoped I had the good sense to find lower Manhattan in a timely fashion.
Unlike the previous night's test drive, I actually made it out of Brooklyn. Then I actually knew where I was. (There was a time where names like Bowery and Christopher Street scared me.) Then I actually found parking. It was all so wonderful. Then I got to the salon and had to be engaging. It was too early in the day for that.
The plan was for me to go to the salon, get some pictures, leave early to go set up at the church. But weddings don't go according to plan. Things started very slowly at the salon. Had I left after an hour or two, I would have missed the meatier part of the story. And the bride would have been stranded. In fact, I deleted all the pictures from the first hour I was there. (I had to conserve disk space.) Above, she painted her sister's toe nails with a bottle purchased at the corner drugstore so that her sister didn't run off to get a pedicure.
Here the bride covers her pearl earrings to protect them from the hair spray. (These are the kinds of shots I was hoping the couple would request.)
When I went to retrieve the car, the rain wasn't so bad. By the time we pulled into a parking spot, though, it was a torrential downpour. Those extra shoes, socks, and pants would have been great... The bride tried to keep an umbrella over my head as I pulled more and more bags from the trunk. I think it took three trips to get all of our bags from the car. (I wasn't the only one who could use an assistant.) While we were waiting on the stairs to the chapel's balcony, I took a quick picture of my bags (Slingshot on my lap; Lambertson with the backups, an external hard drive, and assorted goodies; the bag for tripods, stands and umbrellas on top of the beast of a case for the portable kit; my hand-truck; my umbrella) to see how loudly the shutter would echo. Pretty darn loudly...
When the bride and I arrived at the meeting house (it was a Quaker ceremony), the women's group that had been double-booked for the chapel was still in session. Rather than continue to hide on the stairs, we joined the rest of the party that was corralled in the main office. The groom's mother was trying to arrange the flowers and trim away the wilt. She didn't care to be photographed, so I thought this was a good quick solution to telling the story.
I don't want to show too many faces here, so this is really the last picture that lends itself to this blog. The association for wedding photojournalists had an article that emphasized being a sniper instead of spraying the scene in the hopes to get a hit. I tried to keep that approach as these were two families that didn't seem accustomed to having someone shooting without saying, "Look at me." Above is one of the few pictures I took of all the time spent figuring out where to place the flowers. I think it pretty much sums it up... Blurred, but you get the idea.
How did the rest of the day go from there? I believe I got the shots the couple wanted. The couple was supposed to download my flash cards that night, but there was no firewire port on the laptop and the built-in card reader was not for flash cards. So, I don't know for sure yet how they feel about what I did get. I do know that I didn't use a flash or make the floorboards creak a lot or even take too many pictures during the ceremony. (The ceremony is a long silent reflection interrupted only for statements made by witnesses.)
I also know I was given very little time to set up group shots, but I did it. Between the double-booking at the meeting house, the absence of the bride's family, and my lack of motivation to pop up a studio in the middle of the makeshift altar they were still arranging, I felt like I had maybe 15 minutes to shoot from set up to strike. Plenty of time for some bozo with a point-and-shoot to kill the first battery on my lighting kit, a few unnecessary comments about the condition of my rental equipment, and the groom to imply this is all he could get for $5.
Yeah, looking in Bridge, I took my first group test shot at 5:42 p.m. I took my last group shot at 6:04 p.m. I took a picture at 6:11 p.m. of guests sitting in the pews we had just used, which means my equipment was down, packed up, hidden away, and I had my camera out again before 6:11 p.m.
I think the ceremony was supposed to start at 5 p.m.
I digress. Group shots in 30 minutes or less. Yay.
People ringing bells and signing the certificate? Check and check.
By the time the place emptied out and I had my equipment loaded up and ready to roll back to the car, the rain had stopped. My pain had not. There was a $95 ticket waiting for me.
Apparently only doctors are allowed to park there. Ever. I took lots of pictures of the lack of signs. See what a beautiful job I did parallel parking on my first attempt? Yes, there was a car in front of mine when I pulled into the spot as well as a truck behind. The truck's windshield was sporting a ticket, too, that night.
Some magical sense of duty and belief that this is all worth it compelled me to find my way uptown for the reception. I have no idea how I'm going to convince the hotel's manager to let me turn her mezzanine into a photo studio, no idea where I will charge my batteries, no idea when my shoes will dry...
I arrived too late to catch pictures of the receiving line (a helper monkey (not an assistant--see earlier posts) to pack up my equipment and get it in the car before everyone left the chapel would have been awesome), but I did arrive in time to catch the DJ's introduction of the family (which hadn't really been a priority for the couple). And I got the table toasts (which was a priority). And they found a place for me to charge my batteries (though it was rather unnecessary seeing as we didn't set up a photo station). And I got eat (which wasn't really my priority--I wanted food picturs...). Then the dance floor was heavily and enthusiastically used by guests, which saved me from feeling bad about only wanting to take documentary photos.
I think I got home at 2 a.m. The happiest part of the whole day was how well I drove in the City. The last time I drove a car at all was Labor Day weekend. I don't drive in cities and I'm certainly not the kind of person who shoots at three locations in one day. Although, I guess I am now.
I agreed to shoot a wedding. I didn't think preparing to shoot one would be so intensive, but I spent lots of time looking at wedding photography sites and deciding just what to rent. (The sites didn't help me decide what to rent. It was just an on-going battle in my head while I looked at too many wedding pictures.) I ended up renting the following: a car, a Canon 40D, an extra battery for said 40D, a fast telephoto lens, a portable light kit, two strobe heads, two umbrellas. I think that was everything. I decided not to get a laptop, not to clean my camera again, not to get insurance (though, I still need to do that)... There were two ways to approach the wedding. After I ordered my rentals, I wasn't sure I had gone the right route--the more portrait-oriented route.
The couple didn't want the new trend of photojournalism. They didn't fancy themselves the center of new reality show. They wanted group photos. Lots of them. Okay... Good thing I did that stint at Tavern on the Green and rented lights. Posed shots should be better for my portfolio than documentary photos (even if they would wreak havoc on my budget and make travel impossible).
Friday I picked up the rental equipment. Testing the lights didn't concern me as much as getting to know my back-up camera (the 40D). And being sure the camera and telephoto lens had been smart choices for low-light settings. The two pictures above and the one to the left were shot at a high ISO using what little daylight was left and the TV. (There's a High School Musical chair under all those clothes.)
Making sure I'd be able to hold the camera steady was a whole 'nother story. I tried shooting tiny objects across the room in almost complete darkness. At this point, I was still exhausted from carrying the rentals home on the subway. (Imagine a box as wide as a doorway, as high as your knee, as heavy as a small child. Now put two more bags on top of that and one on your back.) I couldn't begin to imagine how tired I was going to be at the reception when I would really need to be holding the camera steady in the dark.
Now sure that the pictures would have motion blur but would also be large, relatively noise-free, and properly exposed, I decided to test out the lights. Above is what happened when I turned on the lights and used my point-and-shoot's flash. Yeah. The point-and-shoot tripped the strobe lights.
[insert moment to ponder repercussions]
This was my biggest regret in going down the rental path that I did. I knew before I picked them up that point-and-shoots would trip the lights (I'd seen it happen at other shoots) and I should have just taken my own light kit instead (it's from long before the time of wireless technology).
[insert moment of self-loathing for bad decision]
It seems that it would make sense to ask the rental house how to turn off the radio signal, but things that make sense rarely work out when I ask sales people for help. So, I didn't ask. Also, as soon as he had my signature, the guy vanished. Most likely, he would have opened the gigantic case, looked at the tiny-but-incredibly-heavy pack, and said, "Turn the radio receiver off." I did. The point-and-shoot kept on tripping the lights. Go wireless technology!
My little Elph didn't trip the lights here because I turned the flash off. This would be a more effective demonstration of the difference if I hadn't taken a picture of my big camera. But, it does remind me that I tried plugging my 1Ds into the kit and turning the radio dial to "off." The strobes were still slaves to the point-and-shoot.
Satisfied that I had at least put the "no one else is allowed to shoot when the Photographer is shooting" clause in my contract, I didn't have time to be angry at the rentals making me look retarded rather than slick. It was time to go test out the car.
I met LV at the Atlantic-Pacific station, and we went to go find the Zip lot together. I didn't have my cell phone with me, so I couldn't report immediately that the car smelled like smoke and was dirty. I had to do that from a pay phone later.
After a day of carrying my heavy rentals, finding out my low-light images wouldn't be the sharpest, getting lost with a copilot in the car, learning the point-and-shoots would kill my portable kit's batteries and possibly ruin the posed shots, I pulled the blankets over my head and prayed someone would call off the wedding.
Way back, LV bought tickets to see Gavin DeGraw when he came to New York. The tickets were stuck on the fridge for almost as long as the Hannah Montana concert-movie tickets. I would always look at them and think, "That's such a bad place for them." Did I ever move them? No.
At 3:50 p.m., LV says (in an IM), "you have to remember to bring the tickets from the fridge." Yeah, yeah, sure sure. I'm trying to figure out if I want extra insurance for my Zip car, when I can pick up the card, how long I should keep my rentals, if I've set a stupid plan, if the wedding couple will tell me they just want me there for four minutes... Tickets. No problem.
I'm supposed to meet LV at 6:30. I am way more on time than usual. I have no tickets with me.
Does this matter? Will we miss the entire show? We could have stopped to make dinner at home and then gone back to the show with the amount of time it took for the opening act to actually hit the stage. We have a beer, we laugh about some best of craigslist posts, we people-watch, we talk about how great it is we got to sit for so long on the train to and from our apartment.
Landon Pigg takes the stage. A few people know who he is. Many more people take pictures. The girl in front of me takes dozens of pictures.
The cameras in the crowd are practically all the same digital point and shoot. But the knowledge of the camera settings is completely different. I don't think knowledge of your camera settings is the be all end all of great photography, but this poor sap seems to have no idea what the night flash is or why she should be popping and dragging. I was way entertained by the number of times she (essentially) took a picture of the guy in front of her.
Sure, you can see Landon's shadow from the flash, but the camera doesn't see him. Her preview kept showing the guy in front of her surrounded by black. Dozens of times. Later she pushed up close to the stage to get a dramatic picture of the microphone and piano awaiting Gavin. It would have been great. But the piano is metallic and sparkly. Did she turn off the flash? Did she use a different setting? No. Go auto-flash. She got a picture of her flash reflecting off the piano. Her friend next to her got some good pictures. Maybe her auto is better? Maybe she put it on night settings? Maybe one should have asked the other.
Unlike Landon, Gavin doesn't really hold still. His head bobs around a lot. When he was holding still, he either made a hideous face or his guitarist seemed to be giving him a death stare. I don't like the flash on my point-and-shoot, so I was kind of screwed.
So, yay, I'm taking pictures, we're having a good time. And then all of a sudden I'm way too sick to be there anymore. I was so annoyed with myself. Sure, my face felt numb and the flashing lights made me want to curl into a ball on the floor, but I should tough it out. What if he plays "Overrated" like LV requested?
I'm still mad we had to leave because I don't sweat, I just overheat. Teach me not to drink throughout a show...
Eventually, after plenty of hours of being idiotic, the kittens wear themselves out so I can get some work done. Of course, at that point, it's time to leave or make dinner.
