Thursday, July 16, 2009

Uncomfortable situations

When I first started getting into photography as a vocation, I tried experimenting will all sorts of genres too see what appealed most to me. I, like many others gravitated to the lazy and chose to not stray far from home. Since I live in a big city with lots of urban "culture" and grit there are many opportunities abound. Unfortunately you have to be willing to take a little abuse. Pro gear is rather large and in the eyes of many you immediately become a "suspicious" person.

Anyway, I have managed to take a few nifty urban shots and posted a few times on Citynoise.org, a site for those who enjoy all the aspects of city life. Some of the photos there are quite humorous, a select few are quite beautiful and most of them are just crap. Anybody on the internet is encouraged to post comments as they see fit and there is little to no moderation of said comments.

My best picture for citynoise would definitely have to be Stranded Santa. Clearly this man is better off than the average vagrant. His shoes are brilliant white, he was bathed and had access to a laser printer!

My other urban shots were never very adventurous, as I was always uncomfortable taking pictures of unsuspecting locals.

Eventually I found an opportunity as a product photographer for a small business. I worked for them for a while until I realized how abusive and toxic it was there. My outlook on life had gone down the tubes as had my self-confidence and health. I busted my ass for them for 2.5 years and I can count on 1 hand the number of times I was thanked for my work. These lovely people even decided they shouldn't payout my final invoice in full. It's a long story. Suffice it to say I'm glad I got out. Guilt, intimidation and fear-mongering are not appropriate staff motivational techniques. They never ever told me exactly what they wanted so they could always yell when things didn't go exactly the way they had planned.

Anyway I still enjoy product photography and have been offered work from one of their competitors. They like my work and they pay me!

Enough for now.

1 comment:

  1. Your Santa comment reminds me of Sedaris' story about the dog not being a stray because of its clean coat. )(It's in "When you're Engulfed in Flames" LOL

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