I haven't done any work today except mail off cameras to repair for end of season maintenaince and work on ONE photograph. This photograph I shot a few weeks ago and had the RAW shot opened in adobe camera raw.
I was recording my tracking numbers and what not, and an old lady appeared in the window to look at some photographs.I didnt shave today and I had the lights off because I have no meetings and I was planning on just working on this end of season wedding overload. But I started talking to 'Mickey'. I don't know how old she was but her grandchildren are older than me. She was talking about making prints (not lithographs, those are all mechanical, she said).
After talking for a while about different things in St. Louis that have changed, she started to mention and ask questions about photographs such as this one, so I brought her into the office, turned the lights on [showed her an autofocus camera after she said 'whats autofocus?'] and brought her around the desk to see what she said about the photograph.
Immediately she started talking about dodging and burning in areas to strengthen and change the comp.
So I sat here at my desk for almost two hours listening and following her instructions, doging and burning...sometimes I snuck in some cloning to get the effect she was looking for....
It's been a time of great trial in my life--in business, relationships, finance, and everthing else. I took a few minutes out of my WORK to relax and remember why I'm shooting.
(I don't really mind if you critique and even encourage it, but I will take it a bit differently this time because the relationship I made with Mickey is a bit different than someone trying to create the new modern masterpiece...but go ahead and hit it if you want...)
Ain't that somethin'? You sit down to work one day, like any other day, and before you know it, some REAL life happens. Thanks for sharing that. Life is easily forgotten when you're just living...
ContagiousIdea wrote:
I'd be interested to see what you had done before she showed up and see how it effected your style. I assume you WB using the zone system?
i turn the lights off and eyeball it to whatever real life resembles. in this case i think they are looking a bit ashy...no?
dude.....after the life i've had so far...i need to talk to any old person i can get my hands on...sometimes they are cynical like me...sometimes they are rad like mickey...
A while back my wife said, "Old people need so little, but they need that little so much."
Her mom is in a nursing home and we see examples of that everyday. If not at the home then in the older people we cross paths with in our everyday lives.
Give an older person a moment. Most times they will return the favor with a treasured memory.
Great story, I get old people around here come up to me wanting to chat all the time, seeing as I live out in the farms in rural Japan. I once made a trip down to shoot the coast of Wakayama prefecture but the weather turned stormy. I met this cool old dude with a 5D II and 3 MF cameras and he bought me breakfast and told me about 3 other places to shoot in the area, and even let me dry off in his van. Was a great trip, but the pictures weren't very good - just a bunch of grey skies and some rain-on-the-front-of-my-lens pictures
