i’m back in the circuit. doing event photography. and it’s decent money that will help me pay off my gear, which is exactly the reason i started down this path. but this morning i am headed in to the office and i’m tired af .
but truth is, even though it caused some stress in my relationship, and even though it pushed me to the lower limit of my stamina for giving a fuck, it was 100% worth it.
the event was an industry party for a photo and video studio, and the likelihood is that this planted seed will grow into a tree of new opportunities. as long as they don’t hate the photos, that is.
i got a lot of questions about my hip holster - the peak design lens/capture set up. and people were really surprised to see me shooting on tamron glass instead of the canon l series that everyone else is using. but i have a feeling that they’ll understand why i have turned away from canon glass in favor of the tamron lenses once they see the photos and realize 1) they have no technical issues, and 2) they don’t look exactly the same as everyone else’s shit. or maybe they won’t. i don’t know.
the other thing i did differently was using my remote flash trigger and a gary fong mounted on my canon 430 ex ll instead of just mounting on the hot shoe of my camera and using bounce flash to light people. to be honest, the gary fong is kind of ridiculous and not at all a substitute for a good softbox or other studio diffuser. but it does a decent job of spreading light somewhat evenly across a gaggle of revelers in a dark room when held statue of liberty-style slightly overhead and to the side of the camera.
i probably looked stupid but people seemed to be amused, and in a room full of camera nerds, i had a couple of people tell me that it reminded them of the old man behind the curtain holding up a magnesium flash bulb. i suppose the concept is the same.
after looking through the images from the night i am definitely pleased with them. i was surprised at how well some of them came out given that i was shooting at iso’s of up to 12800. generally i stuck to around 3200 when using ambient lighting only, and 640 when using flash. there were a couple of images that came out unusable because of the isos but more often than not, with the right filter, they add character to otherwise unexciting, normal images.
i still need to do my after action review on the three photography jobs i did this weekend, and i will. but right now i’m going to put down my phone and try to get some sleep on this morning train into the office. if i’m going to be late to work, i might as well be well rested.