Work Work Work - A never ending journey to finding the pro

My week long vacation is almost over and while I exhausted from my whirlwind time off from my day job I am nowhere near ready to head back to the daily grind of the real world.

My first three days off included a night sky shoot with my photo club that kept me out until 1:30 AM. This was an absolute blast.

The next morning I was up at 8:00 AM to head off to the State Fair Photography Judging to see how I fared in the judges eyes.

That evening I spent two hours with Bob Olin shooting some head shots and creative scenes with him. Bob was an absolute pleasure to work with, but by the end of the shoot, I was absolutely wiped out.

Then comes Sunday morning, I promptly process a half a dozen shots for Bob and email them to him to meet his deadline of having to get a fresh head shot to his new director by Monday morning.

At noon, it was time to start packing for our trip on Monday.

 On Monday I hope on my motorcycle, with my wife in and kids in the car and we head over to coast for two days of relaxation.

This shot on the left is what we were presented once we got settled into our room. The rest of the two days were cold, foggy and gray days which were a great reprieve from the summer heat we experiencing in the valley and much needed considering we are experiencing triple digit temps for the last two days.

The day we get back from our trip I have two hours to prepare for my photo group's monthly meeting.

I truly have one of the best photo groups. We are active, knowledgeable and so sharing.

To the right is one of the members, Terry. This guy is an amazing photographer, yet is so humble to boot.

He is only one of the 100+ members of the group that makes it so an enjoyable experience.

Thursday, I spend two hours finishing my job with Bob. I process his images, burn them to a CD, prepare a model release, print a sample print (of my favorite shot) and email letting him know that I will have the CD and print ready for him at the meteor shower shoot.

Processing images is 70% of the enjoyment of photography for me. This is where I get to see the actual results of my efforts in the field. I get to experience the successes and the failures. Sure my DSLR has a preview screen, but a little three inch screen pales in comparison to seeing my work on a 21" wide screen.

Just as an FYI... never delete a photo from your camera based on what you see in the three inch display. Even if it is obviously out of focus or poorly composed. That little screen could be hiding a big gem of a secret. Wait until you get home and look at your shots on your monitor. Many times I still delete the shot, but every so often there is a something in a photo, that I would have deleted based on the camera preview, that is actually something very special. Memory is cheap and if you don't have enough, buy some more.

It is 8:00 PM on Thursday and I drag my family out yet again. We head out to Baskett Slough to photograph the Persied Meteor Showers.

While I didn't get any shooting stars in my shots, I still got a few gems worth keeping.

The bright star above the telephone pole is actually not a star at all. It is two planets; Jupiter and Saturn.

The photo club had a blast. And while we got home at 12:30 AM, my wife and kids had a lot of fun as well.

Friday at last. Nothing on the agenda. Time to sit at my computer and go through the hundreds of photos I shot.

A true celebration of the cumulative time off my day job, which was the first time off I've had, that wasn't related to illness, since December.

So how did I celebrate? As I said, I spent the entire day in front of my computer going through the hundreds of photographs I had shot since Monday.

And my oh my, was it a relaxing day.

While I did this, my kids played a new Wii game called Endless Ocean (a beautiful, educational and entertaining game for the whole family). My wife came into the room and we talked, in depth, about my future as a photographer.

We both agree that I need to take this to a professional level. We both agree that I have the talent and the passion.

We just didn't agree on the method for making the transition. But after two hours of discussion, some tears being shed while fears were being shared, by my wife, we came a suitable medium on a plan moving forward.

Now it is Sunday and I am wrapping up my week, sharing the joys and pains of my "vacation" which was anything but a staycation. Still working towards my goal of going pro full time. I know I can do this, but the real question is when can I do this. I almost need another couple of day to recover from my whirlwind of a vacation.

Tomorrow will come and over time I get back into my normal daily routine, but someday I will be repeating last week, every week. Sure it will be work, but it will be a little slice of heaven and who doesn't want some of that?

Boom! Headshot and a whole lot more

And he brings the Nifty Fifty FTW! Last week I was privileged to shoot some professional head shots for an actor named Bob Olin. Bob is an indy actor, or as he refers to himself, a B-Movie Guy. But Bob is more than that to me. Bob is a person. Bob is talented and passionate about his craft. Bob is a client.

Bob's main gig is as the member of an ensemble cast of The Free Box. The dedicated cast of The Free Box fund the project through two part-time minimum-wage jobs. They meet up 2 to 3 times per month to write, film and edit the episodes. Most of the first two seasons (episodes 1-20) were filmed on location in a shared house in southeast Portland, Oregon. The cast loves what they do and is excited to put together more hilarity and wackiness each month!

Bob has been working onstage for over 30 years in community theaters and various film projects for about 10 years. When he is not at work, filming or auditioning he is involved with the Northwest Civil War Council.

I first met Bob in 1983. I was a freshman in high school and he was senior. We were in choir together and it was his involvement in the drama department that got me interested in arts and theatrics.
 
The first play I was involved in was Mid Summer's Night Dream. It was here that the dead body prank got its legendary status.
 
Bob and a few of the other seniors in the play placed a well crafted dummy in one of the speaker boxes, which were enclosed in the walls halfway up between the cat walk and stage. Bob then invited a few of us gullible freshmen up to the have a peak at the "dead body". It was so well crafted and executed that a few us were actually debating whether or not to call the police or not. Once the cops were mentioned the truth came out quick.
 
 

After running into Bob at one of the civil war reenactments a few years ago he told me he was needing some head shots.
 
He told me of his work with The Free Box project. I friended him on Facebook and started watching some of his work.
 
It didn't take long and I was hooked to The Free Box.
 
Bob contacted me again this year about needing head shots. How could I say no to man that brings so much life to Gene (my favorite Free Box characters)? I couldn't.
 
You can catch some of Bob's other acting roles, like Billy-Joe-Barney-Bob in Bloodsucking Redneck Freaks; Chris/The Demon in The Seekers; The Plain Clothes Cop in Little Blue Bill; Drake in The Corners; The Detective in Just Rewards or as Barry the Prison Cook in No Requests and as the Landlord in Fray.
 
 

Bob is a busy man and maybe with a little help from these photos, he will be even busier. 

 

After the head shots were out of the way, we decided to have a little fun.

 

We wanted to do some promo shots for Gene (his character in The Free Box) but we couldn't figure out how to get some of the props we really wanted to use to work properly.

 

 

 

So we resorted to some dramatic shots of him as a detective.

 

 

Above Detective Bob is looking at the body in the dumpster. Seems like a very familiar scene to me. Reminds me a lot of the dead body.

Here Bob is playing the tough guy and roughing up the bad guy, a make up artist I brought with me, played by Jonathon.

Johnathon wasn't even prepared for this role at all. But he was kind enough to get himself in the shot.

All in all it was a great shoot. We had some fun, created some great photographs and produced some laughs along the way.

Thanks Bob for playing along with my creative direction. I hope you had as much fun as I did.

We will be getting back together to shoot those promo shots of Gene in the fountains.

Thing to do while relaxing on vacation

Photographing waves is one thing that can be done while relaxing on vacation. First, it is a challenge to stay dry while doing this. Sure it is easy to stay with a tele-zoom lens like Sigma 50-500, but where is the challenge with that?

Get your butt in the water with a 50mm prime and have the time of your life. Make sure to take precautions to keep yourself and your equipment safe. Waves are strong and sneaky little freaks of nature. But with enough time studying these little wonders, you can start to understand and even come close to predicting them, but never assume they will follow any rules, because the first rule of waves is: they are sneaky little freaks of nature.

Yes, I got wet. All the way up to my part that don't like the cold water. And just so you know, Oregon's ocean temperature hovers around 57 degrees this time of year, so it is cold. And to quote George Castanza, "I was in the pool. There's shrinkage!"

To freeze the action, you need a fast lense or bright sunlight or both. These were shot at 1/1000th of second using a 50mm at f/5.6 in hazy/cloudy conditions at ISO 400. This was enough, with my camera, to lock the action and prevent blur of the waves.

I was in ankle seep water, that could quickly become knee deep, or waist deep with splash, in a heart beat. Steep shores create near shore breaking waves that are easy to capture without too much risk, but there were times when a wave or two would come in rouge-style and send me running for dry ground. A few times I wasn't quite fast enough, hence the shrinkage comment above.

To ensure your camera's safety, you may want to consider an under water housing, but for casual and recreational photography, please remember to keep yourself and your equipment safe.

And if waves aren't your thing to shoot, you can always turn to shooting people.

In my case, I did both. Okay now back to my regularly scheduled vacation before my wife finds out I am blogging.