Once I started working in the camera store I had to sell cameras, develop and print photos, as well as lighting and color correcting them. So being around cameras everyday and hearing about all the really cool things you could do with them, I felt the want to learn. I have always looked for new ways to express myself artistically. I could paint a picture in your mind with my words, but when I would attempt to create a actually painting it looked no better then a 3rd graders. Actually I've seen some 3rd graders who put my painting and drawing skills to shame. So, with no skill to paint or draw, this seemed like the next best way to express myself in a visual way. Instead of letting a grouping of words carefully put together in descriptive sentences tell a story, why not let the photos tell the story? But we're not that advanced yet.
So I bought a simple film point and shoot camera. I would bring that little camera everywhere with me, taking photos of my friends and I being stupid, the scenery on the walk to and from school in down town Chicago, and just whatever caught my eye. Needless to say, the want to be more creative took over, and I quickly outgrew my small point and shoot. My next step was to get myself a film SLR. For those of you who don't know what a SLR is, it stands for Single Lense Reflex. They're those large cameras with the detachable lenses. The quality is so much better, you're looking through the lense instead of view finder, and you can adjust shutter, aperture, add flashes, add different lenses, the possibilities are endless.
I started taking my new camera out to the cemeteries near where I lived and taking photos of the cool head stones. I quickly found myself at total peace and completely relaxed. Even now I find that when I'm doing a photo shoot I'm at my happiest. So what made me want to make the jump into the PRO category? Well it was a mixture of a lot of things happening at once. I was graduating from college, which meant graduation party, which meant money money MONEY! I had already decided that if I got enough money for graduation I was going to invest it into a good digital camera (SLR of coarse) external flash, background stand, and studio lighting. I wanted to do better and professional photo shoots, I wanted to be creative. I had been told by my boss at the camera store that I had a natural eye for photography. When it slow at work and there was nothing else to do I would pick up photo books and magazines and study...sure...it was work related...but mostly I was reading and using the research materials available to me for my own selfish agenda. I would see a image and want to know how it was done, how the lighting was set up, what filters did, how flash affected the image, etc etc etc. And we had all the books right there!
Now, I might not have taken a class, and yes, I did learn a lot on my own through reading and trial and error. I learned how to do things the hard complicated way, and then I would learn the easy way. But besides all of this I had some other help. A customer who was a professional photographer and I had developed a dialog with each other. He would come into the store to print photos and I would pick his brain on how to accomplish a certain shot or ask him to break down how aperture worked, stuff like that. He taught me a lot, and I would always show him what I had done and he would critique it for me. He also taught me about the business of photography, how to conduct yourself, what to do and what not to do. In later years he would take me under his wing and take me along to photo gigs and or send me out on my own to cover one event while he covered another.
So let me take a short break to thank my photography mentor....Thank you Mr. Boston for all that you've done for me! I owe so much to you.
So while I was making my transition to becoming a pro photographer I got my first photo gig. We got a call at the store from a new modeling agency that was forming and they needed someone to come out and take head shots of their new models. The agent came into the store to check out my portfolio, which wasn't much at the time, but apparently she saw promise in me so she hired me. I had just acquired my studio lighting and only had one small test run with them before I was supposed to do this shoot. To make matters worse, I couldn't use my digital camera because I didn't have the right attachment to connect the lights to the digital camera, so I had to fly blind with film. I had never done anything like this at all before, I was jumping into a pool head first without even checking if there was water in it or not. But what choice did I have? Here was a opportunity in front of me, who knew where it would go, I had to take the risk. This was a huge learning experience for me. The shoot went great, as far as I could tell. But who knows if I had blotched anything up on film or not. After the shoot was over I raced back to my store and had them put the negatives through the machine, to my relief everything turned out just fine. Whew! Everyone was more then happy with the photos, but there was a small catch. When I had asked the modeling agent who the parents of the models should make the checks out to she told me to make a business name for myself and have them make the checks out to THAT name instead of my own because it would "look for more professional". A lot of people made the checks out to ME, while the others made them out to my ":business name". Here's the problem...a bank can't and won't cash a check to a business that does not exist! $500 mistake.
I got to shoot the modeling agency's fashion show as well, which was a experience all it's own. Models walking down the runway, stop, pose, turn, walk back. You need to be quick! Timing is everything. I was lucky enough they did the whole thing multiple times or I would have been fucked! I don't think the modeling agency is around anymore, and I didn't do much more work with them after that. But I had the experience under my belt. It might not have been the best of experiences, but it sure as hell could have been a lot worse. I was green at the time. A new born baby into the whole world and business of photography. Mistakes were made, but they could have been a lot worse or come at a even more inconvenient time. Since then, I've been working on my craft. I did photo shoots with my friends as models, I found bands to photograph at local concerts, etc. Everyone has to start somewhere, and that was my start down this photographic path.
These photos are some examples of my very early work, some of them from the shoot with the modeling agency and the fashion show. I gave them a rehashing to make them look better. But it should give you a better idea of where I started my photography career 8 years ago.
