The Times
I think I accidentally became a professional.
LATE JULY — Prologue
I had been working at Public Storage for several months, and started to become very comfortable. The pay was great, more than I’d ever made, and since I had moved in with my girlfriend and started paying “actual” bills for the first time in my life, it came in handy.
It was 5 days a week, 9:30 to 5, with health benefits. It was, for all intents and purposes, a “grown up” job.
And I was terrified.
I have many beautiful and unique complexes and fears, but one of the most vivid is settling into a proper job and accidentally losing ten years of my life to it.
I’m a very commitment-heavy person. I have no issues with it, but I know that the life I want for myself is famously tumultuous, and requires a certain amount of palpable struggle to achieve it.
This, Public Storage, was the type of job that could get me through my bills, allows me a certain amount of spending money, and could even allow me to support a child, which I do want to have. I had already spent six months there, what were six more?
I was made acutely aware of my thinking one day while signing 18 papers in triplicate for myself and my manager.
That night, I began searching for a job, and found one in LifeTouch Preschool portraits.
It was a transition to something much more in my wheelhouse, it paid more, and they paid for my gas. While it wasn’t “the goal”, it was a darn sight closer than sitting in a Public Storage office until 2024.
In the background, I had decided to pursue a career in freelancing.
How? I had no idea, but I had a goal at least.
SEPTEMBER
Sometime in early September, my friend (and the person who has dealt with the brunt of my constant talking) texted me with a simple question.
How much would I charge to shoot a rehearsal for a play?
The theater was about an hour away from where I lived, right by where he and my mother live. It was a place I visited anyway.
I gave him my quote, and the theater liked the price.
On the 25th (or thereabout) I arrived at the theater, nervous beyond belief.
I had no idea what I was going to do, but decided to be honest and forthcoming.
I was there early, and would ask the questions I’m usually too afraid to. Even if this was a one and done job, it’s better to make a good impression, rather than look as nervous and lost as I felt.
When the show started, I began to find my rhythm, circling the 270 degree stage and moving to create parallax.
Unexpectedly, the very fact that I moved around the theater was enough to impress some of them, it was something that their last photographer apparently hadn’t done.
One of the staff told me she wanted me to come back in November for Charlie Brown based off of what she’d seen, and she hadn’t even seen the photos yet.
That night, I returned home excited, and unexpectedly bolstered in confidence. By the 27th, I returned about 200 photos to them, and they were pleasantly received.
The approach I ended up taking in shooting was framing everything as if it were a film.
Nothing fancy, just simple blocking and over the shoulder shots.
Since I had no influence on where the cast would move, I just had to stay out of their way and get the best moments.
It was a lot like a wedding, with slightly less pressure.
OCTOBER
By the beginning of October, I had generated some interest within the theater company, if only just because I turned the photos around so quickly.
That month they were running rehearsals for The Rocky Horror Show, and officially extended an offer to me to shoot it.
I decided I wanted to impress them, to really outdo myself, and to deliver work that looked like it cost WAY more than it actually did.
I came to the theater three times that month to shoot rehearsals and promotional shots, and shot a commercial. I had 2 hours of prep before the actors arrived, then twenty minutes to execute the idea before they began rehearsals.
So far, the video has garnered nearly 10k views on Facebook (thanks to a small marketing campaign they had run using it.)
I wasn’t sure if I’d achieved those lofty goals, but I had made an impression at the theater and established a stable working relationship. Extra income per month, usually once a month, and I’d found a job that didn’t just give me an opportunity to practice photography, but a reason to actively improve it.
NOVEMBER
Going into my third month with First Street, I wanted to do something special, and their upcoming production of The Crucible gave me the perfect opportunity.
For the first time, we would be doing photos outside, instead of inside the playhouse. This gave me the world to play with, and a lot of opportunity for drama within the frame.
I was also gifted with a more serious story than Rocky, so the actors were able to portray a truthful sense of despair and harshness that I couldn’t do in Rocky.
So we went out into the wilderness and started our shoot.
The photos ended up stronger than I’d initially thought. I noticed an improvement, technically at least, from Shakespeare to The Crucible.
It was exciting.
In amongst shooting for The Crucible, I’d shot an engagement, and a family session with two small children, which are just about the farthest you can get in terms of tone.
EPILOGUE
I had proved to myself, though not intentionally, that I can actually handle multiple simultaneous projects. Something that was unthinkable any time earlier with my varied complexes and complete lack of organizational skill.
With this, I started to lay the foundation for my “career”, if I’ve earned the right to use that word. My obliviousness came in handy in that I didn’t actually realize the potential of the whole thing.
If anything of note, or of footnote, or of tweet happens, rest assured I’ll turn it into another overlong exercise in subtle narcissism.
