Nissan 370Z Forum - Have a laugh! Grrr..

Well I thought I would give everyone a laugh and so here goes.

About a week ago my wife saw an ad in the paper from a local newspaper looking for a freelance photographer to cover news events. I thought this would be a great opportunity to make a couple of extra bucks while doing something I really enjoy instead of harassing people as I do in my current job. Don't ask. I don't intend to tell and ,no, it's not some form of collections.

Anyway, they asked for some samples of people photography which is just what I like to do. So I sent my samples and much to my surprise I got a response saying they liked my work and they gave me my first assignment.

Now have to tell you that I was very excited and, in fact, I could not even sleep the night before. I mentally went over and over the area I was about to work in, thinking exactly how I should photograph the people in it. I decided that I would not use flash and that instead I would use natural light. But just to be sure I went to a local store and bought some additional batteries for my flash.

Well I got there and sure enough the light was very dim, not exactly dim but the inside of a supermarket is not the ideal place to be doing natural light photography so I said to myself "thank God I bought my flash!"

Well the woman from the newspaper told me to be there at 1 o'clock as that was when the event would begin. Supermarket was holding a cupcake decoration event for a whole bunch of kids and it looked like a lot of fun.

Well sure as **** I got there at 1 o'clock only to find out the supermarket had started the event at 1230 instead! I was pissed and not at all happy that my very first paid photo shoot would get so screwed up at the very beginning.

While most of the kids had already gone but fortunately there were some stragglers and so I figured I would have an opportunity to photograph them. I pushed the on button on my SB 600 flash and the damned thing did not start. What the hell!!! I opened it up and, this has never happened before in my life, one of the damned batteries had leaked! I was absolutely sick!

I took the batteries out went to the men's room and cleaned out the contacts and bought a whole bunch of new batteries right there in the supermarket. I have to tell you my mind was scrambled and my hands were wet and, sure as hell, the flash slipped out of my hand and hit the floor!

I picked it up and put in the new batteries but the compartment would not close as it had been bent in the fall. To make a long story short I eventually did get it closed but the damned thing would not work in fact kept firing by itself every few seconds. I was sick!! Well of course there is the flash inside the camera and since I was within several feet of the kids the flash was adequate.

I took nearly 200 pictures of the few remaining kids.

I brought them all back home and loaded them into Lightroom and began to work on them. Now you have to understand I am not at all familiar with Lightroom. I do not feel like recounting all the troubles and tribulations I had with that...dont even go there!!!!...but in the end I managed to get five good pictures which was what they wanted. Then I wrote the copy..and just now sent it off.

I have to compliment my wonderful wife was with me all the time helping to get the names ages and towns of all the kids that I photographed.

I said to myself, "Someday I will laugh at all this, but just not today!"

So my wife went down to the local deli to get some food for us while she did I poured myself an extra-large martini. Yes it was Bombay Sapphire and, wouldn't you know, it was sitting on the counter awaiting filtering through my kidneys and I turned and knocked the whole damn thing over!

Well anyway all is well that ends well. I wrote the copy and got the 200 pictures down to five good ones and sent them off tonight. I'll have to bring my flash to get repaired next week and hopefully they can fix it for reasonable amount.

It took me about five hours to do what anyone else could have done in an hour and a half. But I had fun doing all this ( yes I am a masochist) and at long last I am getting paid for something I really enjoy doing. My wife and I have had a good laugh together and I thought it would share the entire adventure with all of you.