JULI WERT - Blog

Two weeks

6/14/2019

I have a pile in the corner of my room of things that I am taking when I move. It is not much. Art, posters, tins, cork board, letter board, magnets. Mostly things I will use to decorate my new space. I am not bringing much though. Taking things, not taking things, it all seems so ceremonious.

Who will I be?

Just as well as my curation of the things I am taking, I feel like I can curate myself. Except for the months at Jess' I have never moved. My parents bought the house I live in now a few months after I was born. I never had to wave goodbye to all my friends before. I never had to start at a new school as the new one.

I will still be exactly me though. Just a few miles more South. I will only be free in the sense that I am a few more miles away from everything I have ever known. That is really tantalizing to me.

I am not running. I never was running. I just want to know what it is like. I am just curious. I am only chasing my dreams.

learning experience

5/29/2019

I was recently taught something. The hard way.
Let me set the scene here. A year ago I walked into an Adventure Lost concert with my camera to take photos. But I didn't know that I would be walking into an extravagant light show of art, music, and out of this world alien actors. It was a wonderful night. I snapped a few pics of the hosts of the night, pics that they liked. There was color. There was light. It was a dream to shoot there.

A year later, I have become friends with the Hosts and I am hired to take photos for the next show-stopping night. My first mistake was horrible up selling myself. I did not come into the meeting with a prepared number to ask for, but just an echoing of "no videographer should charge lower than $500 for a good day's work." Where did that even come from? I know it is something I read online. I was pushing video work for the night, as it is something I want to get into and focus more on. They couldn't afford it. So it was to be pictures. The "interview" went on professional enough. I knew what questions to ask. "What kind of adjectives would you like these photos to represent?" Playful, colorful, groovy. Sure. Get those down, but in the outside darkness none of those were really achieved.

We then agreed on a number around $100. Which to "capture the night," was still low for my tastes. For me to take photo and video of one band, I charge 125. This was photo of the whole night and the bands that all went on. That was my perspective. I thought 3 bands, thats 100 each, all the outside stuff, another 100, all the editing another 100. That would also include a promo video of footage I got throughout the night. I mean that's a fair number if I was able to deliver on all that. But I wasn't. And I still realize that even if I was able to do all that, it is still a very high number.

I got to the venue to help set up, something that would help me get into the 21+ venue as a 21-3 months. That went fine. But then the rain started. The venue, which was partially outside, was overcast and dull. Good natural light? Never heard of her. The lighting outside only became worse as the night went on, and soon I was shooting far darker than I would have liked to. There were a few string lights, but nothing substantial.

Without flash, I couldn't shoot very well. My poor Nikon D5500's built in flash wasn't helping me much either. So as the night went on, I found myself taking fewer photos. Instead, I was talking to my friends. Not worrying about taking photos, because I really... couldn't figure out how to shoot.

The inside portion was well lit enough. But it was tight. I shoot with a 50 prime lens, which with a cropped frame makes for a very tight picture. That was against my favor.

The music would start and by time I was able to get my settings all right, the band would almost be over. I missed the entire first set because I just didn't know they were on yet. The second band I reached with one left and I was able to take a few shots. Nothing special.

The going inside and outside really messed with me as I messed to fix my camera settings to shoot better. I'm just not good at that yet, and it takes me a little bit to do that. I'll get better, but I'm just not quick yet.

There were 5 wandering characters that I was to take photos of. I knew they were there, but not the number, and not what they would look like. I got 2 of them I think. The ones with the whipped cream. There was the tarot card reader up the stairs who I didn't visit. I didn't even know she was up there. There was the poets also, but I did not get any pictures of them. I got pictures of the art and the painter. I got pictures of the silk artist, but again, the cropped frame of my camera made for too tight of a picture.

A good handful of my friends were there that night, and I made the mistake of primarily photographing them. Some more than others, but it is always easier to take photos of people who you are comfortable with, and people who are comfortable in the camera. A mini shoot with a close friend was just a thinly veiled effort to actually get good shots of the night. But in reality they had no correlation to my job. Also maybe I was just scared to go up to people to take their photo? I knew the lighting was too bad to work with, and I knew my flash wouldn't even help, so why bother with posing people in front of my camera, or exposing my candid position with flash?

But the worst thing about the whole night that I was focusing on trying to prove myself in something that wasn't even my job. I wanted to take video. I wanted to show that I could take video and make a great video. I thought of it as a gift to the host. Pictures and video! And you didn't even ask for the video! But in my mission to prove myself in video, I fell behind in picture. I was not doing the job I was specifically asked for. That is where I really failed.

So what will I do next time to learn from this disaster?

1. I will research my pricing and have a confident number before I walk into any meeting. I will know exactly what my skills, time, and effort, are worth.
2. I will discuss thoroughly what is exactly asked of me and do exactly that. I will know the people I need to take photos of and have checklists that must be filled so I know my job is fulfilled. If I don't get a picture of the bride's uncle's boyfriend's kid, what am I even doing???
3. I will not focus on taking photos of my friends, possibly I will even shy away from it. It is the other people who show up that matter. Those are the stories I want to share in my photos.
4. I will know what lighting is good and bad to shoot in and I will talk to the hosts of the night and explicitly express concerns if the lighting is sub-par for shooting.
5. I will invest in an on camera flash and learn how to use it.
6. I will know the schedule of the night and will be in the right place at the right time.
7. I will do the job I am asked to. I will not try to do other jobs in effort to prove myself. I will not try to do more jobs than I am able to as both will then suffer with lack of focus and concentration.
8. I will look into new lens options. I do really like my 50 prime, but it's a beginners lens. Everybody knows that. I need to be able to get closer to my subject and the 50 prime is very limiting.

Everything is learning. Everything is an attempt to get better. I look at my work and I can beat myself up over the mistakes as much as I want but they don't mean anything if I cannot categorize, organize, and improve.

I will get better.
I will get better.

laundry day

4/29/2019

I like having this blog and being able to properly air out my thoughts. It helps me think a little more positively, as I am certainly not going to put anything really depressing up here. I keep those thoughts tucked away in a journal anyway. But here, I am able to think a little more positively on the changes I am facing. Here I am excited for the things to come. It is not a fake excitement, but a more focused one than I would normally feel. It is an interesting feeling.
Who reads this anyway, Hi Mom. Hi Annie. This is for you, the real people here.

closer

4/27/2019

Today started with a ten in the morning appointment with the bank. I now have a one year loan for thirty thousand dollars with a fifteen year payment plan. SCAD is paying for a bit, around eight-teen, but out of a total cost of fifty-five thousand a year it still leaves quite a bit left over.

Today was also the day that I solidified my housing. I will be moving in to a lovely apartment in downtown Savannah for around eight-hundred a month. It seems right. I am very excited.

The room is open at the end of May so I might end up moving down a lot sooner than expected, maybe end of June now. I mean, I'll be paying for it anyway. I have a few shows and a fest to shoot before I can leave. Unless I make more plans. But, right now, it seems like around June 24th to the 30th would work best. I will also be closer to my Floridian love which will make everything worth it. We will have the whole summer now to explore and to set new memories into this strange and new state.

It will all be worth it. I know it.

a clearer signal

4/17/2019

I am currently living between two radio waves. One is a song I know and love dearly with my whole heart. It is a song I know every word to, inside and out. It is a song that I have lived to, loved to, cried to, laughed to. This is the song of my hometown and the song of my friends. This is the song that has lead me to this exact moment; typing in my basement room and eating broccoli tator-tots.
The other song though, keeps cutting through the radio-waves as I travel down the road closer to its transmitter. This is a new song, something that I have never ever heard before. But DAMN. IS IT A BOP! This is new! and exciting! A song I oh so desperately want to dance to. To SCREAM to! To drive down a highway for 12 hours and to make an entire new me to!
This new song has been cutting through the radio station at an ever increasing rate. But at this moment, I'd day I am at the perfect cross roads. Half way. I plan to move down sometime in August to give myself time to root in the soil. Where am I living? I've no clue. I'm talking to a few different people right now. I need to get that all settled. But that is a problem for another day. Right now, I. am. going. to. scad.

almost time for shelving

4/10/2019

I'm sitting in class right now, probably paying less attention that I should be. I have a deep case of the end of the semester blues. Everyone is busy and everyone has way too much work to do. This is my sixth semester here at Montgomery County Community College. I started 2016 while I was still in my senior year of high school. I guess I liked school so much I had to do it twice at the same time.
When I started here, I was 17. I was so much younger. I remember falling in love with college life the very first day of classes. The people here were like mountains compared to the fear and judgement that happen in high school. I've always been older than my peers. Not in age, but something deep inside of me.
But as i'm sitting here, 20 and a week away from my half birthday. I feel more real than ever. I have something so great and wonderful on my event horizon that I am failing at loving every day. I look to August, and Georgia, and half the time I pretend I am there. This August I am moving to Savannah Georgia to study film at Savannah College of Art and Design, and that is all I have every wanted.
I need to take my binoculars off though and be able to see today, otherwise I will lose these final months with my friends and loved ones.
But boy, I can not wait.