you know it’s almost ridiculous how life calls your bullshit on you sometimes. i was dropping a series of voice notes to my dude stock.henry yesterday when it occurred to me that i was in. need of being checked. on saturday, i headed out to his spot to run through a fashion photo shoot aimed at capturing the attitude of a few items of clothing for sus. while she was getting ready, i asked him if he’d followed up on a gig opportunity that was lurking out there on the tree branch of the universe and ripe for the plucking. he hadn’t. and i was essentially telling him, bro, you’ve gotta go after this shit, assert yourself and take control of the process. but here’s the thing. even as i was saying that, i was failing to do it.
here is the sitch. i arrived at his place at 2:20pm. sus and i were supposed to start shooting at 3pm. but it took a lot more time than that to get ready because it was a social kind of day. we ran to the store, came back, ran to the store, came back, talked about this and that, and didn’t finally get out of the house until about 4ish. the problem with that is twofold. one, that is way too much time to be not taking photos on a shoot, and more importantly, two, we missed the light. it was one of those days where the clouds are spread across the sky like a thick coat of grey peanut butter, and we really should’ve been out shooting immediately after i arrived. one of the problems was that we originally planned on starting with a certain outfit, but then determined that richmond hill wasn’t the right neighborhood to capture the vibe of that outfit. so right off the bat there was some hesitation and reorientation needed. we decided to start with the second outfit, a multi-colored lehenga, and once we finally got out of the apartment to shoot, the light was already failing. we - i - had decided on a particular place to take the photos, the forest park bandshell, and my idea was to shoot low and wide, capturing her on stage moving gracefully. because we were so far behind the schedule i had envisioned, i didn’t have time for innovation on that idea, after the first round of photos, i realized i was less pleased with the setting than i though i would be. it was too plain, too grey, and made moreso by the depressingly mute grey sky. literally anywhere in the woods would’ve been better but it was too late for that, because during that first round of photos, sus realized that she had left her scarf - an essential part of the outfit - at the apartment, so vic headed back to get it, and by the time he got back, it was already blue hour - the time when i thought we would be shooting the third outfit, a blue dress.
so the question is, how did i mess this up? i didn’t assert myself on the process. i didn’t take control and direct the troops, so to speak. i had a relaxed vibe and so everyone had a relaxed vibe. it was totally on me. i needed to step in. to say, listen, we need to be out the door at 3pm for the first outfit, so all hands on deck. i needed to say, this location isn’t working, so let’s go here instead. but i didn’t, and as a result, i’m not happy with the results.
don’t get me wrong, we still got a couple of good photos, but if i’m being honest with myself, they are below the mark and probably need to be reshot. of course that is up to sus, but i would imagine she will agree.
from a personal perspective, i had a great saturday evening chilling with friends. but professionally, as a photographer, i spent eight and a half hours (including travel time) on a subpar shoot that i’ll probably have to repeat anyway.
the upside is this. i learned one new way to fail, and in turn, one new thing to avoid if i want to succeed tomorrow. and i received a much-needed reminder from the universe that i need to watch my own lane because i’m not such an expert that i’m ready to be teaching others how to drive.
in other words: sit down. be humble.