Get over it

Last Saturday I photographed my first gay wedding. I didn't know it was a gay wedding until I was on my way; I found out when the other photographer I was meeting texted to let me know there would be two brides. My reply was simply, 'Oh, ok.'

It seems a bit strange to me but apparently a lot of people were freaked out by this wedding. The venue I shot at doesn't want any publicity about it. Other people have made comments about how you need 'an open mind' and 'a big heart' to deal with such an event.

For fuck's sake. This is the 21st century. Who cares? If two people love each other and want to make the same lifelong commitment as anyone else, why shouldn't they be allowed to? Who gives a shit what they want to do with each other? Don't give me that shit about it being in the Bible. So is stoning people for having affairs and if we enforced that one then most of the people I know would be dead.

Honestly I was totally unfazed by the whole event. I did notice that there was no first kiss or much smooching at all during the event. I'm sure this was done deliberately so as not to offend some of the older relatives that were there. Some people don't like things that make them awkward or uncomfortable shoved in their face. I get that, so kudos to the brides for making that decision. That level of thoughtful planning just makes me all the more irritated that people are being all self-righteous about the event. Part of me wishes they had put on some kind of BDSM routine for their first dance or invited all the single guys up to play the soggy biscuit game in the middle of the dancefloor. It was really a very tasteful, well organized and sanitized almost to the point of blandness event. In short, there was nothing to offend anyone, which is why people being offended by it is bugging me so much. Get over it, old people. The fact is, you signed contracts with a client, so you can't suddenly get all fussy about it because people are gossiping about it. Grow some love spuds and stand up for yourselves. People will respect you far more for it.

As you may be able to tell, bigotry and downright ignorance are a couple of things that irritate me immensely. I'm not pro-gay rights or anti-old, stupid white people. I just don't see why people care so much about other people's lives. In short, get over it.

The W word

I don't normally write anything on here about what I do when I'm not writing, because I do do other things apart from writing.  In fact, the writing just fills in gaps between the other things I do.  Apart from cooking, cleaning, shouting at a small dog and generally irritating my wife, my main other occupation is photography.

I don't think I'm a great photographer by any means.  That's not just the old false modesty thing, you know, when someone goes "Golf, eh? Never been much good at it," right before they hit a hole in one and look smug.  I'm talking about an honest technical appraisal of my own capabilities and my ability to operate the cameras I have.

I've owned DSLR cameras for about 8 years now and like most things in life I've played with them sporadically.  I always shot with natural light mainly because I didn't know how to use a flash.  But since the start of this year, a kindly chap has taken me under his wing and taught me an awful lot about how to do good photography and really it's not that hard.  Most people go wrong because they're scared of all the buttons and settings, but if you take your time and learn what they all do and then do a bit of reading on how it all works then you will find yourself coming on leaps and bounds.

As a case in point, at the start of the year I was bumbling through weddings barely understanding what I was doing.  Now I can shoot a full wedding, process the images, print and deliver them to a client and have them turn around and say how much they like the pictures.

It's that last part that made me write this.  It's so nice to see people comment on a picture and say how much they love it.  The praise is not directed at me; there's nothing to say who the photographer was.  Instead, what they like is the mood and the emotion of the image, and that's what I strive to shoot.  I'm not technically the best but I like to think I can capture how people feel, and when they come back and comment to that effect, it makes me feel like I've done a good job.

That said, I'm still learning the trade, and I will use the rest of this year to improve my skills.  Next year, though, I'm going to be taking off and making some good money doing something I really enjoy, and you can't ask for more than that, can you?

A smug and ill placed sense of self satisfaction...

Since moving to America, I've not really worked.  This wasn't really through choice at first - it took me a long time to get a green card, but since I got that late last year I've applied to a lot of companies and gotten nowhere.  I seem to be stuck in a middle ground, either over qualified to do entry level jobs or under qualified to do the stuff I know I can do.  So life has been rather frustrating and demoralizing of late.  I know eventually I'll land something but I'm having to try different things to make money.

One of those things is photography.  I'm just starting out as a professional photographer.  Photography is something I've done for a number of years, but I've really fallen by the wayside with it since moving to America.  My camera sat dormant for a long time, until I got the opportunity to get into wedding photography.  Last weekend, I shot my first wedding as a second photographer, assisting the guy who shot my wedding.

He's very good.

I'm not.

I'm really not, and that's just not false modesty.  I found it incredibly difficult.  I shot a lot of photos and most of them were crap, both from a technical and compositional point of view.  I was really disappointed, but I also learnt a lot from being so bad, about what to do and what not to do, if that makes sense.  I know that if I get another go, which I should, that I will be much much better next time around.  Most of the stuff I got that I was pleased with were the detail or incidental shots, but then as a second shooter I suppose that's what I was there for.  I reckon I got about a 30-35% hit rate, which is okay but I want to get 45%.

Most of the stuff I've shot previously has been still life or outdoors.  This was indoors in low light and I really struggled to catch things, especially when everything is happening so spontaneously.  I got better as the event went on, and it's kind of telling that my best shots all clumped around the end of the day.

In addition to this, I also drew my first money this week from selling microstock photos, which are just photos you sell the rights for online.  Seventy dollars from shooting still life shots.  I need to get into that more and sell some more of those.

As well as this, I've done a lot of writing.  In fact, right before I started writing this I reached 70,001 words to finish the first complete draft of my third novel.  There's a long way to take it before it's really completed, but I'm pretty pleased with it thus far.

Now for the tricky part.  In the next few weeks I'm going to put together some packages, consisting of a cover letter, a synopsis and three chapters of each of the stories I've written.  I'm then going to submit these to agents, publishers and maybe magazines to see if I can do something with my writing.

I really don't know how this will turn out.  It's pretty nerve-wracking even thinking about it.  Most likely, I will fall flat on my face and get nowhere, but I've reached the point where I don't want to see the chance of actually doing something worthwhile with my life slip by because I didn't have enough self belief.  If I'm able to move to America and marry a gorgeous blonde, how hard can it be to get a book published?

That's what I want to find out this year.  I'll let you know how it goes.