Life lately
I can’t believe February is over in three days. February always seems to go by really quickly whereas January takes forever.
It’s been a fairly busy February, actually. I feel like I haven’t had enough time to relax. Almost every weekend I’ve been outside to go to an event. I should probably take this weekend to do absolutely nothing. This is probably the first weekend this month that I don’t have any events lined up.
Here’s a quick summary of the month:
I experienced that f/0 error again on my X-T5, so I gave up and had it sent to Fuji. Unsurprisingly, they found nothing wrong with it (because I baby the heck out of my camera). But it’s taken a long time to actually get my camera back from them. I’ve had to drop several hundred dollars renting equipment because I still had work to do. What am I taking away from this? I need a backup camera body. And I can’t just get any old camera either. I’d want to get a backup mirrorless camera with the same capabilities as my X-T5. My ideal backup camera would be a Sony mirrorless camera, a zoom lens, and a speedlight.
I wish that I could have a Sony backup kit: a Sony mirrorless camera, a wide-angle lens, 33-35mm prime, a 50mm prime, and a medium telephoto lens (75-85mm). But I need a lot more money than I have to afford that. Sony is twice as expensive as Fuji.
In either case, my Fuji is on its way back to me. I unfortunately am out several hundred dollars, so I need to find some paid work soon.
I photographed two events this month. Unbarrd’s Love Languages event was in early February, and Poetry Unplugged’s Valentine’s Day event was the week after. The photos came out great for both. I do wish that I’d had a camera with better low light capabilities, though. There was no light at all at the Love Languages event, and my flash kept distracting the performers and attendees, so I had to shoot wide open and crank up the ISO, which made the photos a bit noisier than I’d like. Same with the Poetry Unplugged photos. Perhaps I’m just being overly critical.
I went to a very fun content day last weekend. Asia did another themed photoshoot, this one focusing on black musicians, and it was very fun. I was able to get some posed photos with some of the models, which is good. Unfortunately, I didn’t do the best job directing them or telling them how to pose. Honestly, it’s because I don’t have much confidence in posed photos. I know that David Suh has a posing masterclass online, and I just might pay to take it. I’m supposed to collab with someone this weekend, and I want to be a little more confidence in directing my models.
Anyway, the event was fun, I had a great time networking with other photographers and videographers, and I actually got some photos of myself playing guitar (thanks Eddie!). I’m rarely ever photographed, so it’s nice to be the model for once. I just might chance my profile picture now. 😊
I announced my first ever showcase. I’ll be at Larchmere Arts gallery next month to show 10 photos of poets I’ve photographed over the last year. There’s going to be an actual event for the showcase, too, and it’ll feature spoken word performances and live music!
The biggest stressor for me right now is getting my photos looking right. I like to shoot wide open, and I’m not afraid of raising the ISO. The problem is that a lot of my photos are noisy and have to be denoised to look halfway decent. I ordered some proofs yesterday after denoising them and raising the image quality. If they look good, I’ll go ahead and order the full size prints. After that, I need frames and matboards.
I’m learning that there’s a lot that goes into preparing for a showcase. And it’s costly, too. But it’ll be nice to say that I’ve had a photography showcase before.
But yeah! That was February. Lost money, but created lots of next content and secured an opportunity to show my work. I feel like my goals for the month of March are:
Find at least one new paid photography opportunity
Take a posing class (and maybe a lighting class too)
Do my showcase
We’ll see how March goes!
