A bad day behind the camera
I love to talk to other photographers and learn from them. Karl, Jay, Merle, Donna, Steph, and Bobbie are some of the people I have personally had the pleasure to listen and learn from them. They are more than a blog post or online lesson. They are friends and family and mentors.
And I hope they are forgiving, because I am going to break one of the rules I have heard many times...."don't show them the bad ones."
Yesterday, we had our Unit wide staff meeting. It was my job to take new staff photos of all 40 of my co-workers. I was excited to have a great location with beautiful natural light. It was an overcast day, with just the right amount of diffused sunlight, shining through the wall of windows.
I set my camera for continuos clicks, so I could avoid the eye blinks and relaxing smiles.
I tried a few self portraits using the timer. Somewhere in that process I hit a button on my new camera and didn't notice.
Forty portraits later, I loaded them to my computer to find out they are all out of focus. Some might call it soft focus. I call a big fat failure.
The camera had been set on manual focus the whole day. :(
These are the bad photos of great people.
We work in four separate offices, in four different counties. We have a Unit wide staff meeting once a year. It is not quite as bad as messing up the photos of a wedding, but it is not going to be as easy to fix as retaking senior pictures.
As I learn my new job, I have been eating a lot of humble pie. I have made so many mistakes. This is just another one to add to the list of mistakes to learn from. But it feels like I will be eating humble.....what's something bigger than pie? or something I eat more than pie? humble hummus? No, I don't really eat much hummus. humble turkey? That's big, but not quite the image I'm looking for. humble happy pills. There we go. I can eat a lot humble happy pills. But it feels like I will be eating humble happy pills forever.
Does anyone have any great words of wisdom before I go to work on Monday and have to break the news to my co-workers that their staff photographer is a failure?
And I hope they are forgiving, because I am going to break one of the rules I have heard many times...."don't show them the bad ones."
Yesterday, we had our Unit wide staff meeting. It was my job to take new staff photos of all 40 of my co-workers. I was excited to have a great location with beautiful natural light. It was an overcast day, with just the right amount of diffused sunlight, shining through the wall of windows.
I set my camera for continuos clicks, so I could avoid the eye blinks and relaxing smiles.
I tried a few self portraits using the timer. Somewhere in that process I hit a button on my new camera and didn't notice.
Forty portraits later, I loaded them to my computer to find out they are all out of focus. Some might call it soft focus. I call a big fat failure.
The camera had been set on manual focus the whole day. :(
These are the bad photos of great people.
We work in four separate offices, in four different counties. We have a Unit wide staff meeting once a year. It is not quite as bad as messing up the photos of a wedding, but it is not going to be as easy to fix as retaking senior pictures.
As I learn my new job, I have been eating a lot of humble pie. I have made so many mistakes. This is just another one to add to the list of mistakes to learn from. But it feels like I will be eating humble.....what's something bigger than pie? or something I eat more than pie? humble hummus? No, I don't really eat much hummus. humble turkey? That's big, but not quite the image I'm looking for. humble happy pills. There we go. I can eat a lot humble happy pills. But it feels like I will be eating humble happy pills forever.
Does anyone have any great words of wisdom before I go to work on Monday and have to break the news to my co-workers that their staff photographer is a failure?
Oops! The positive side is it's painful enough that you'll probably always remember to check the focus setting in the future!
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