I wanted a bigger backpack to take to Boston so that I could fit everything and carry fewer bags. When trying to decide if I should get this back, I tried it on and the salesman suggested I'd be better off getting an assistant. I couldn't really see how big the bag was or that it might way more than a third grader. It's hard to say which would have been more difficult to carry around for 12 hours...
In the morning, I hit a local grocery store for the follow up event to the tasting that had been canceled the day before.
Then I headed out to the mall for two fashion shows.
Mostly, I was interested in seeing how all my pictures from July were being used. That's my portrait of Christian in the phone. :0)
I was so glad I booked my trip by train. (I was even happier I got on the Acela.) It rained all day. So much that the event was canceled, but I took pictures of the signage in the subway before heading to the hotel.
I feel like I had a lot to catch up on before doing a shoot in Boston. I needed to go get my backup camera repaired, drop a disk of high res images from a look book shoot, send invoices, make an appointment to talk to an account director, and pick pictures from a previous shoot that I want a model release for. I think I got it all done...
We haven't had side-by-side TVs in the living room since we moved in two years ago, but, when the final game at Yankees Stadium was going to be played at the same time as the Cowboys on Sunday Night Football, it was time to roll out another TV with rabbit ears.
"Fill the frame" is the most basic advice given to anyone who wants to take a good picture, but I wasn't about to compete with this crowd for pictures at the Christening. I like the story my picture tells.
I knew I had to be in a rather remote area of Brooklyn at 3 p.m. for a quick meeting and that I also needed to take my backup camera in for a repair. But I didn't feel like moving. My 3 'o-clock was to meet the head of a modern dance troupe and check out a rooftop location for a shoot. I made it there on time, but the camera repair shop was closed by the time I got back to Manhattan. Well, the one I went to wasn't closed, but they had to send me to a sister location that was closed. So the Rebel awaits its repair.
Scrappy had no idea her art would be displayed in an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum until five minutes before we left for the opening gala. We had the postcard on the refrigerator and I'm sure it must have been mentioned in class, but Scrappy was still shocked to see her work displayed. Then she went looking for the chips and cookies.
I've been retouching for three days now... The wacom has made retouching so much easier on my wrist, but all the work is still a pain in my neck. There's always something else that could be improved. Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist.
Day Three of shooting was so long, it easily felt like a week. We shot a meet-and-greet in the morning, prepping for the show in the afternoon, the show, and then the wrap party... It was definitely a good time.
After a second day of shooting Christian Siriano (that was the shoot in July where I couldn't disclose details), I had to go check out the billboard created from the July shoot. (The red dot in the middle that says "LG.")
While my pictures made it into the reel playing on the screens at the fashion show and make up a bunch of the content on the lglotus.com (you can download my work as wallpaper!), my stills weren't in the 10 seconds on the billboard. (Christian looking at fabric on the screen just right of center.)
Still, I was part of that billboard in Times Square. :0)
I can't post the pictures I took earlier in the day, but this the family enjoying the new studio prop.
I picked up a new client from craigslist who wants to pay for portrait sessions, but also wanted me to have a really comfy chair in my studio. I thought this was a bit ridiculous because he wasn't going to pay enough to off-set the cost of a good armchair from someplace cheap, like Target or IKEA. Then I took a look at the used furniture for sale on craigslist and found this lovely Workbench armchair.
Regular people selling their used goods on CL don't deliver, so I had to find a rental car large enough, pick Scrappy up from school, get to the rental car, pick up the chair, hope we all fit, and then return the car after dropping the chair at home. Luckily, LV was working in Manhattan that day and could go move the chair to the sidewalk and then hop on the subway with Scrappy after we wouldn't all fit. I beat them home, enlisted the help of a neighbor to move the chair, and was able to return the car before the rental time ended. It was more drama than I usually like on a Friday night.
...means a lot of iced coffee and bruises.
The best part of shooting so much in one week? Always having iced coffee ready in the fridge. The worst part of shooting so much in one week? Carrying so much equipment every day. I have bruises all down my every limb and big crazy bruise on my hip from lugging a 30-pound strobe kit.
Because I don't have enough on my plate with needing to turn around images, I stuck to my test shoot for this week. We did a variety things, ranging from kind of bizarre to totally bizarre. (The are slightly bizarre and normal.) And then she got hurt. And it was 90 degrees outside. And I kept getting phones calls from my contact person for this coming weekend's shoot. The posing was good, the lighting was good, but "the shoot" was... eh.
We went to see Gavin DeGraw again. This time we hung further in the back and upstairs--it wasn't as hot or stuffy, therefore I did not feel like passing out. Being upstairs also meant I had a great view of people using built-in flashes too far away from the stage. (See examples below.)
I'm such a snob, huh?
The opening act included an electric mandolin. I did not think I would ever pay to see someone play the electric mandolin...
I can't believe that's my yard. I also can't believe I figured out how to light that. It's like I've been reading. It's more like I woke up, having learned from all my past mistakes. And then my yard turned out looking this lush.
First day of a new school year? Time to break out matching sweater vests... Although Scrappy was super nervous about her first day of third grade, it seems like God and Streaky are there to shower her with support.
Kind of crazy to think that less than a year ago I quit the office job and a little less than a month ago I almost gave up on this photography idea. Here I am shooting, shooting, shooting...
