My last day of work was Friday and it was a massive fight to get to the end. I spent all week shooting the jobs that my boss didn't want to or, in the opinion of most people at the Bug, was too lazy to. But I digress. As much crap that a person has to go through when you work at Shutterbug it does provide a great outlet to get some good work done. If you're the type of person that can rifle through piles and piles of horse shit just to find a diamond (I don't know why a diamond would be in horse shit) then it isn't too bad. Some of the people there are great. Some of them are miserable. It's just a matter of not letting the miserable ones keep you down and deriving what you want out of the job.So the massive fight I had to go through last week was the senior pictures he asked me to shoot. The first girl, as the studio manager put it, was a "charity case". She had no money and had worked her way through high school to be able to buy a car. Not a bad little story. We had the shoot planned out around her car (her trophy) and some of the areas of town that were unique to her. It didn't exactly work out that way. 1.) she didn't bring her car 2.) She hated being outside in the heat 3.) Even when we did come up with a cool shot for her, her midget sized patience overtook her and it was like pulling teeth. I said to hell with it, took her to the confides of an air conditioned studio, shot three set-ups and sent her on her way. The good thing is that when we shot in the studio she finally got excited about the pictures. It was exactly what she wanted. So all this time I wasted out on location trying to put together a package of images could have been avoided if I had just asked, "What type of picture do you want of yourself ?" I was so locked into what my boss wanted me to do that I lost focus and didn't ask what should have been my first and only question.
The second shoot was a cluster fuck of mis-guided scheduling and lack of communication. Our studio manager, as much as I want her to succeed, is the most unorganized person in the world. It might be that she comes from the corporate world of Sears studio photography. They tell her what to think and how to organize. She never had to do it on her own before now. So, instead of having one senior to shoot, we have two at the same time. Instead of spending the entire day with them, we spend a couple hours sharing time. Instead of doing location shots, we only do studio. To top it all off, my boss, the person that was supposed to shoot it, the man that the seniors were told was going to shoot their pictures decides to sleep in. I'm stuck there with Murphy's Law biting me on the ass, hard. I asked the models what they were expecting from the day's shoot and neither one of them knew nor cared. I thought to myself "fuck it" and shot some pictures for myself. I gave them stuff they can use but I certainly didn't shoot like it was senior pictures. Here are some samples of the day:
My last day at the Bug was reminiscent of the last day of school. I had the hope of summer ahead of me and the promise of next year. I can't wait to get out of Bowling Green just like I couldn't wait to get out of the Bug. It's not bad here, I just need away from these people and to be closer to the ones I trust and love.
