It’s been a great weekend! Friday night Andie and I got together for the first time in forever! Her schedule shifted back to where we can do our traditional Friday hangout again! It had been a while since we’ve hung out, well, we just had A LOT to talk about and she stayed till about 3am! It was awesome! I’ve missed her!
But man that next morning my mom called me at 8 and it took me a bit to get back to sleep. I knew I had to because I had a long day planned. I was able to sleep till about 10 and then it was time to get up and get ready for my first Assistant Wedding Photographer job. I was excited, yet nervous. I ended up driving down with Susan rather then going in my own car. I figured this would give me time to talk to her and kind of see the directions she had for me. I was anxious about my equipment. Knowing what kind of camera she uses, a Canon 30D and I shoot with a Nikon D70. (Let’s put this into perspective. The Canon 20D is comparable to the Nikon D70. The Canon 30D is a newer model and is comparable to somewhere between the Nikon D80 and Nikon D200.) Either way, I knew my flash and lens were slightly inferior. In the end I realized it’s mostly about the eye and the how you crop an image (yes, equipment is important!). I learned so much from watching how she worked the entire day.
The wedding was at the Kimberly Crest Mansion down in Redlands. Beautiful location! Any photographers dream! The bride was gorgeous and the groom a cutie. They made a very photogenic couple. We got down to the mansion a little after 2 and jumped right in. It was non-stop till about 10pm when the partying at the reception really started. You can only take so many pictures of drunken people dancing. At one point in the evening I was sweaty and tired and finally had a moment for a potty break and it hit me, this didn’t feel like work! I was having a blast! Sure, my one eye was all twitchy, I was sore from holding a camera up to my face all day, my forearm was actually strained! But I was having the time of my life! I’d never contorted my body so much in one photoshoot. I am definitely on the right track to a dream job!
As much fun as I was having I was really concerned that Susan wouldn’t like my shots. I realized quickly that she had a different style of shooting then I did. She takes more chances with framing her shots at odd angles. Hers were always beautiful but I was concerned about screwing up a picture attempting the angled shots. I’m definitely going to have to play with that. I was jealous of her computer. She had a beautiful huge flat screen apple. She put together a slideshow while I took a couple shots at the reception. I also am determined to get the newest version of Photoshop. I’ve wanted to for a while but after seeing what the newer version lets you do to your shots I’m definitely getting it AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!
The reception lasted till about 11:30 and we didn’t get on the road home till after midnight. I got home and was sore and sticky all over. One of Susan’s requirements for the day was to wear all black. It was a warm day and we were busy shooting, you can imagine my need to rinse off before bed. I was exhausted so I thought a bath would be good. I climbed into bed at about 2am.
I took over 1500 shots over the course of the day. Most were duplicates, just snapping the same shot a few times just to make sure I got it right. And I’m happy to say that Susan left me a message this morning and told me she had a moment to look through my pictures and after giving me a slight heart attack in sarcastically saying that they sucked, she assured me that she thought they were great. I don’t have even a couple shots to share because we emptied my cards as the day progressed. Susan said she’d send my pictures along with a check this week so hopefully by next weekend I’ll be able to post a couple!
Today after church I agreed to do a photoshoot for Edify, the church band. We had an idea of what type of locations we wanted so after church we all went out to lunch and narrowed it down to a couple abandoned graffiti-filled structures out near Phelan. I had fun but the sun was bright and I knew the time of day would be tough to shoot but I figured I could make it work to my advantage for the type of shots I was looking to get. We spent maybe an hour or so and got some great shots. Most of the band came over after the shoot to look through the pictures. Ironically they thought I took a bunch but after yesterday a little over 100 wasn’t that many!
Anyways, I really should be heading to bed. I’ll post pictures soon!
Labels: Photoshoots, Rambling
posted by Charity at 6/08/2008 10:10:00 PM 
