Wednesday, January 15, 2014

They can't all be easy ones...

i had two weddings all way across the island. I hate shooting at that church! Don't get me wrong, its a beautiful chapel, its just that the windows are tinted kind of blue/green so all the pictures come out horrible!! It takes me all night to finish my edit!! Think I went home at midnight...

The wedding couples were fun, BUT.... I had two videographers for both weddings!! I have hard enough time keeping one of them out of my pictures, so when I have two, I go crazy!! The company i shoot for doesn't want any of the videographers in the pictures, especially their tripod!! So you have to get some creative angles to hide them. I shoot in back at super low angles to get the chairs to block him, or set the couple at weird half of the frame to crop him off. But with two, you can't so that since they are on opposite sides. But, being that I'm not used to shooting with two videographers, one of them said I'm always in HER shot haha I kept trying to get out of way of one of them, and kept walking in front of the other... sorry...

I'm not used to shooting at that church either so during ceremony, I'm like a runner at start of a race, waiting to see whats going to happen next, then run like an idiot to try catch the shot.

The first wedding was small package so it was pretty easy, the second one, being large sucked. Two videographers AND my makeup artist from hell!! Joke, she's a nice lady, just that she is really slow, always gets in the way and talks about weird stuff..

We were doing pretty good timing wise. Usually I try keep my weddings on time because if one wedding runs late, it will effect the next and next weddings. I am always rushing and never take too long with any shots. We were done inside chapel and the makeup artist gets her time to do her thing. I was outside waiting and waiting... about 20 minutes later, the couple finally comes out!! So much for being on time. I rush as best as I can but its large package, so I need a lot of shots.. Fun part? The makeup artist comes up to me and asks me "Why are we running so late?".. I wanted to kick her lol

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

No pain, no gain

Yay, first weddings of 2014! I had to shoot two weddings today. Weather report said possible thunder showers, so I kept checking the sky...It was a beautiful day! Nice and sunny, not too hot...

Only crappy part was right during my wedding, a huge cloud drifted over the chapel and made it dark and ugly.... hate when that happens. Worse is when these fat clouds (never get small ones) drift in and out making it impossible to get the exposures correct! It would go from f8 1/250 to f5.6 1/125 in a second, then jump back up. Since I'm using a manual flash, I can't have my shutter speed go over 1/250 of a second, so I can't shoot aperture priority...

Not much happened, just nice easy weddings. Really great couples and 2 fun guests. Only thing that happened that gave ME a lasting memory was after the wedding ceremony, we were going to shoot a lei exchange. I set them up by the exit of the church by some railings. The couple face towards the road with the guests (two of them) face the couple. The company I shoot for wants me to catch the guests face, so I'm behind the couple. I couldn't get the second guest in the shot since the couple were on a small "hill", so I "tried" to stand on the railings and shoot down.

There are two railings that meet  perpendicular to each other, so I climbed up on them and right when I was going to shoot, my foot slipped off one of the rails and I fell down. Since I was straddling the one rail, guess where I hit? Nope, I missed the family jewels and hit my inner thigh ! My second camera (one with the long lens) swung around in circle and hit the railing. Everyone was asking "Are you Okay?" so I just said "PROFESSIONAL!!" and climbed back up and got my shot!!

Later that night when I was editing my pictures and tried to get up, my outer thigh was sore by my hip. I took peek in mirror and now i got a huge lump and bruise over there!! Winner!!

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Sometimes when you're shooting, you get hurt trying to rush and get your shots fast. I once was taking a group shot and I wanted to get the group from the opposite direction. So I had to climb down to the beach by walking down some rocks. When I turned to get the shot, both of my feet slipped out from under me and I landed on the rocks on both knees! Cuts on both knees and holes in my pants...
And didn't miss the shot!! PROFESSIONAL!!

Once in a great while my back gets sore. Old injury involving carrying 200lb up some stairs.. so bending over is almost impossible! And it seems always on those days, I get the videographer who likes to set his tripod up really low! I always ask him to raise it, but he won't.. So getting under it is a real challenge when you have to carry two cameras and rush to get the next shot. Once as I was trying to get under him, my flash cable caught on his tripods leg clamp and dragged his video camera with me haha.

I remember one time I was shooting a wedding and during the ceremony, when I was getting my wide shot from the back, it felt like I got stabbed in the ribs with a knife! It was so sore, I was in the back of the church and I couldn't move! Funniest thing ever! The coordinator saw me and was wondering what I was doing . Pain went away but it happened again, All I could do was laugh since it was so sore

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy New Year! What a crappy day.....

Just short post since its now New Years day but on Monday I had a wedding with beach. Super nice couple but weather was kind of junk. Looked like it was going to pour. Hard part is it was a large package with only a couple! My worse nightmare!! So many shots with just a couple in such a short time.. We finished up at church and went to the beach. Luckily it stopped raining, just dark clouds overhead.

After a few shots on the beach, I went to do the bride sitting down on the sand. Usually the company I shoot for don't want any sticks or seaweed in the shots so I try to clean up the mess. It was low tide so there weren't too many. Right next to the bride was a piece of what I thought was soggy drift wood. I picked it up to toss it, and noticed it didn't look like drift wood. It looked like a piece of... doggy poo!!! As I slowly walked to my shooting spot and slowly raised my hand to take a whiff and... it was dog crap!!! Darn it!!!

 I kneeled and grabbed a handful of wet sand to try "wash" my hand off. It worked a bit, so I grabbed more and tried again but by now I had to start shooting. After my shots, I grabbed more sand to scrub away my hand and luckily the smell was gone!! Victory!!
When we were walking to the next shot location, I told my couple about my misfortune  and the bride said "OH MY GOD!" haha too funny!!


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I remember another "crappy" wedding I had. I was at the same beach and when we finish the photoshoot, last thing I do is clean off the brides shoes so when she gets in the limo, the sand wont get all over the car.

As I was taking off the brides shoes, I saw what I hoped was mud on the bottom half of her shoe... turns out, it wasn't mud! The entire bottom half was covered in dog poo! Or maybe it was a horse because that mess was huge!! I held the shoe up to the couple and was like, what on earth are we going to do? They looked at me like I have to clean it!! The limo driver came over to rush me along and I showed him the mess and he looked at me like "what you want me to do" Ugh!!
Luckily I had some paper towels in my pocket so I asked the limo driver for some water and started to clean up that mess...

It took a while and when I got most of it off (it stained the shoes sides since they were made of silk and white), I said I give up. The bride was happy (I wasn't lol) and they left. Walking to my car I smelt my hand and sure enough, it smelled like dog crap...I walked over to the bathroom to wash up but they had no soap so I just cleaned as much as possible. As I got in the car, I kept smelling dog poo pretty strongly so I looked at the bottom of my shoes, and sure nuff, I stepped in it too!!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sorry for late post but hope your holidays were fun! I was lucky and no wedding on Christmas. Before I'd shoot 365 days a year since more then a few Japanese couples didn't celebrate Christmas. Usually there would be a few weddings that day but luckily now they just close for the day so I get to have the holiday off!!
Other things I missed were Superbowls! In the last 20 years or so I've seen maybe one superbowl! Before at our church we would have a Superbowl party with food, snacks, and fun. But, I'd be shooting the wedding, watch a few minutes of the game and right when it gets good, have to go back and shoot lol. Fun fun
I even had to shoot weddings on the day my daughter was born! I can't believe I missed it....She popped out early so it was quick birth..And by the time I turned around, she's 13 already!! I left house and come home to a grown woman.... My line of work we don't get vacations either. You don't work, you don't get paid... Hard to have anything planned since I don't get my schedule till the night before.