Proof I Still Exist

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10

Real estate shoot for Conway, a group I recently made connections with over the Summer. Handled a few shoots for them thus far, primarily flips that have some order of roughness about them overcome by a coat of paint and smart staging, but also a couple extremely nice remodels and owner-assisted sales. Arguably some of the first work I've done with a legitimate realtor agency (as opposed to an investment group or rental firm). They like my work, and I like doing work for them.

Shoot wraps up after a bit over an hour, and Rob, who just completed his own property shoot, is hanging out at Order & Chaos Coffee in Federal Hill. It's a short 20 minute jaunt, takes me through the neighborhoods of personality surrounding suburbanites would (incorrectly) label "sketchy". I gun it through the I-95 tunnel because the obnoxious echo of my car's fart-can exhaust pleases me in the acoustic confines of the tunnel. I'm an idiot of simple pleasures. I think of the video on the Greek philosopher Diogenes I watched that morning.

Drop a buck on the meter and walk to the coffee shop with camera bag in tow. Hold an annoying conversation with the barista as soon as I walk in the door. She's selling me on a text message based loyalty program of sorts. I go through the motions to convincingly satisfy her very practiced directions, well knowing that I don't visit the shop with nearly enough frequency to justify constant automated marketing notifications. All I want is a chai latte and to sit with Rob who I notice at the bench on the upper landing. Never been in this part of the shop before, figure I have the 7-14mm f/2.8 wide angle on my camera already from the real estate job and take a snap of the room, college students and all. Before we leave, I take another of the sitting area immediately through the front door. I like its design and style, glass panes permitting a clear view into the design firm in the same building. The openness of the firm's layout appeals to me, and without knowing what in the hell it is they even do, I want to work there.

The rest comes down to meeting a woman and her dog.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11

Rob and I play pool upwards of 3 hours straight. I eat half a plate of the most delicious cheese fries I've ever touched to my tongue. We both play like goddamn machines and it feels amazing. Even the relatively idle exercise of walking around the table is exhausting, but it's a great night.

I am not a photographer today. But I do process an old shot for Flickr because I can't sleep without feeling some semblance of creative productivity.

I sleep well.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12

A guy has been asking me a couple weeks now to photograph him in his fursuit and I finally commit to meeting up now that my schedule is open. Had a private real estate job on the books for the afternoon, but they dropped out last minute (they always drop out last minute).

Driving to his place is a trip down memory lane, cruising roads I used to street race in younger, more fatalist days. All the houses are huge, and his is no exception, which is a surprise when I find out how young he is himself. We spend a good hour talking, making introductions, and he is genuinely a cool and interesting person with depth of history we barely brush on. He's also quite professional in his approach, and knows exactly what he wants in his engagements.

I only have my bag with a couple flashes so I'm figuring out how to bounce light evenly. His room is big and has slanted ceiling that are just off-white, so it's the perfect environment for a simple setup. Only takes one test shot to figure out the scene. I'm doing my usual methodical thing, letting him decide on the general pose, refining it with verbal direction, then finding the best framing. It doesn't take us more than a half hour and we walk about with close to 40 frames, any of which are pretty damn good but I know which ones I'm picking out for deeper editing.

Processing the photos is fun, a blend of VSCO presets in Lightroom with judicious tweaking and Photoshop touch-up to make them clean. I want to do more shoots in the same vein. I wish every shoot ran so well. I wish every client was that chill.

I wish it didn't take this shoot to remind me that balloons are just generally fun to bounce about mindlessly. There's a childhood gem hidden in such idle play it's easy to forget about.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13

Work happens. My boyfriend wants to go out for a bite, and Rob picks us up at the apartment. I eat an enormous burrito bowl via tortilla chip and feel like a fat ass the rest of the day. We try to play pool, but it's League Night (it's always League Night) and after a couple games we're asked to move/leave so they can open every single table to the league players. I'm playing like crap as it is so I'm not too bothered by the ousting, but relieved as the league guys on our former table complain of the table's curves throwing off their shots. Maybe it wasn't a bad night in the early stages after all.

The sky is on some sort of glorious fire when we step outside, and we decide to find a spot to shoot the scene. But westward-facing vantage points are slim, and the sky won't last long. We try cruising to City Garage for a view by the Hanover Street Bridge but the lane signals close off our turn into the park. We end up by the Schuster Concrete building instead, but the light is gone, and I'm not particularly enthusiastic about hunting for interest in tired places. Rob is persistent though, and I let him co-opt my borderline sour head space for a bit.

I go to my default impulses and start hunting for symmetry. Color everywhere sucks, so black and white it is.

We get to the edge of the park by the water. The sun is not with us and we're shooting into the twilight so it sucks. Field lights behind us obscure the more interesting clouds of the scene, but it's dark and I'm using slow lenses without a tripod. Even 5-axis stabilization doesn't help my shaky hands. Every frame not shot into the setting light over the horizon is a blurry mess so I deal with handheld panoramas for later stitching.

A herring is fishing in the toxic waste water, and we watch it for a bit. I shoot some video of it out of curiosity. Still frames at 150mm and f/5.6 are all garbage, and the light sucks anyway. A lot sucks, but I'm not as sore about it as I sound now. Some nights just don't work out, and that's okay. There are other days.