Another Reason to Move

While I was celebrating the newly instituted Tiara Tuesdays, my landlord was getting the garage cleared out. All that good stuff that I had models posing with is now gone. How boring.

Non-photography

Before I got started on that ad from yesterday, I decided I was going to beat Bratz Forever Diamonds for the PS2. I have no idea why I felt the need to play it all. Probably that it meant for an hour my biggest problem would consist of following a puppy while it looked for pieces of a lost makeup kit...

One text-heavy web banner isn't enough to pay the insurance, so LV asked me to help him out with a new client and design some more web banners for them. Wee. More web banners.

Blech

Today I finished retouching, proofing, and sending files from my previous model's test shoot. Then I started seriously looking for insurance, and wanted to hide under a pillow. I'm just starting out. Where am I supposed to get the money to pay to join an association in order to pay more money for insurance...?

Magically I received a request to design a web banner with too much text, and it reminded that I have to become insured as a photographer so I don't have to go on doing stuff that sucks.

Back to Designing

After two days of retouching skin texture, I'm suddenly back to designing mobile banners and comps of websites. I guess it's a welcome break. When the paycheck from this assignment arrives in three months, that'll be a welcome break.

Returned

Monday morning I got to wake up bright and early again so that LV could help me get the rentals down the stairs and into the subway. This meant between the two homeless people and all our equipment, there wasn't a lot of room left for other commuters in our car.

Then he made sure I made it all the way up to the street level, which wasn't completely necessary because of all the elevators, but it saved me time later of describing the type and number of people too lazy to take the stairs.

The friendly guy from the rental house checked in my equipment. Forgetting all about the point-and-shoots tripping my lights, I asked him instead by the lights wouldn't sit properly on the stands. His answer was that the stands were in fact crap, but apparently I should be more willing to break the equipment because the strobe head would have slid much farther down onto the stand. Live and learn, I guess.

Testing 1 2 3... Testing

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.

Moving Files and Cleaning Up Vomit

For five days all I did was was wash blankets, move files, trek to the vet's office, clean up vomit, move files, clean up vomit, burn a CD, clean up vomit... only to learn on the sixth day that I paid $200 for antibiotics to cure a UTI my cat doesn't have and to make him thoroughly ill.

At least my floors sparkle now.

Attempt at Fashion

So, this model from Colorado, one of the many many models on Model Mayhem who was coming to New York for a winter recess, wanted me to shoot with her between Jan 5 and Jan 9. I set aside the 7th, she said great, let's shoot my friend, too, and then I never heard from her again.

After telling wardrobe, hair and makeup that the shoot was off, I decided I would use myself for a shoot. It was embarrassingly lame. But here is the last frame--me, defeated on the floor. (Ten-second timer.) I should have paid attention to where I set those lights. It's the closest I've had to a blown out white background.

Last Day

Today was my last day at Tavern on the Green. Cry cry. I felt I had better things to do with my time. (Which don't include regularly updating this site.)

Officemate

As if some of the requests weren't annoying enough for my freelance assignments, my little desk pet took it up another notch. You might think he's sleeping on my mousepad, but that didn't happen until after he was done cleaning himself...

Halloween

I had these grand plans to go around Manhattan, getting pictures of people in costume. Then go assist the French photographer I found on craigslist. Then go to work at Tavern on the Green. So far today I've taken pictures from the couch and blogged. Lots and lots of catching up happiestpuppies and starting this blog. Not really what I had hoped to accomplish. Though, I was up until 2 a.m. with headshots...

The Home Office

My last day at the office job was October 12. Then I got a cold and was scheduled for far too many shifts at Tavern on the Green. Rather than spend much time in front of the computer, getting my act together, I was sifting through my piles of old magazines for ideas, sketching Christmas ornaments for WomansDay.com, and blowing my nose a lot.