Crash+Burn
I have to admit, I've been in the zone for the past month. Every week I've had fun and challenging assignments thrown at me and I feel like I have met them all in stride and produced really good work. When people ask me how wedding season is going I tell them that this is "Adventure Season" because all of the weddings and shoots I've been doing are BIG. Big in scope, big in concept. This past weekend was a continuation of that, with a wild tour through New Hampshire, hitting up The Lakes Region and The White Mountains then dropping down to Boston. It was more adventuring and did I meet these challenges in stride as well? No I didn't! Maybe it's mid-season fatigue setting in or maybe these particular challenging challenges were more challenging the the previous challenges. I got the jobs done and I made decent work but I certainly didn't do it gracefully.
The three things that got in my way were these:
Difficult portrait subjects
HEAT (11 hour wedding shoot on a barely shaded mountain in 90 degree heat)
Learning the ins and outs of a big, intense new camera on the fly (btw - all photos in this posts were shot on the new beast. It was a big investment and I'm not really comfortable bragging about it yet)
First off, I am almost always making portraits of people who are at least a little bit difficult to photograph. Not that they mean to be, but since I'm usually shooting people who aren't professional models they aren't thrilled to be in front of the camera, but they at least want to try and make it work. It can be very uncomfortable to be photographed and a lot of people freeze up. This weekend I had a unique situation where the photoshoot was given as a gift and the people being photographed just didn't want to be there, didn't want to play along, didn't want to engage with me at all. I've done this long enough that I can get through it, but it's exhausting. Here's a trick. If the person you're photographing is struggling to loosen up and you have another person there, hopefully someone they know and trust, have them stand off to the side of the camera and make the person laugh. If the situation is really uncomfortable you can quietly say to them "I'm dying over here, can you do something funny?" If you have some rapport with everyone then be a goof yourself and tell the extra person "Okay, you are the fun police, your job is to make sure that she DOESN'T LAUGH. Be VERY SERIOUS and if she laughs she goes STRAIGHT TO JAIL." Telling someone not to laugh is WAY more effective at getting someone to laugh then if you just tell them to. Having someone stand off to the side gives the nervous subject a lifeline and they will project towards them, which is almost at the camera. It gets them projecting out and not in and that's when good photos can happen. I used this trick on the difficult shoot this weekend and it got the job done. I tackled the problem but it left me feeling exhausted. At the hotel I was sluggish and clumsy, and dropped a full cup of coffee on the only shoes I had for the weekend. That led to emergency outlet mall trip #1 of 2. The second was the next morning before the wedding when I realized I only had black clothes to wear to a wedding that I knew was going to be a scorcher.
The wedding was good. It was on a beautiful mountain and the couple was wonderful, but damn, the heat almost killed me. I started thinking irrationally. "They might send me home because I'm sweating so much." I absolutely shouldn't complain about being hot and tired because that the bride kept pace with me throughout the day after doing a 6 hour round-trip hike to the top of Cardigan Mountain the morning of the wedding.
I got the job done. I had to change my shirt twice. I made it to the end of the night. The stress of the day was compounded by the fact that I was shooting with a new camera that I had received just days before. At my most pathetic moments I would curse the fact that I was there working and not at home in an easy, controlled environment where I could actually spend time testing and learning the new features and layout of this beast of a camera. I constantly hit buttons at the wrong time, changed settings, and almost dropped it because it weighs double what the bodies I normally shoot on weigh.
I made it home after midnight and passed out. I had an engagement session the next afternoon in Boston, which I considered rescheduling. Driving in Boston is the worst and I didn't think I had the energy for it. I'm glad I toughed it out though because this shoot was the polar opposite of the shoot I had earlier in the weekend. The couple was fun, generous, engaged, and holy cow they had chemistry. I always try to get couples to be affectionate and lovey-dovey with each other but these guys couldn't keep their hands off each other. I joked repeatedly that I was going to leave to give them privacy. It was great to see, and it was so much fun to work with. Having good chemistry with the people I'm photographing is a huge adrenaline boost. I left the shoot feeling energized and healed from the stress of the weekend. it helps that the location was amazing. We shot at Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, part of The Emerald Necklace. I would bet money that right now there's a student at Berklee College of Music with an ambient drone project called The Emerald Necklace. Someone check for me.
I didn't know that places like this existed in Boston. The Arboretum is big and lush, and feels totally separated from the grimy bustle of Boston. I totally forgot I was still in the city. I 100% recommend going there if you are in the area and need a break from the Boston thing.
Anyway, since I'm complaining about all the assignments this weekend it doesn't seem fair to post any of the pictures. All of the pictures included are tests from my new camera around the house the day before and after the weekend shoots.
Next week brings a mysterious portrait session, a town hall wedding directly across the street from my house, and small back yard wedding in Alfred, Maine. Seems manageable.
