learning experience

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.