Lately, I've been doing a lot of photography work in my spare time. I don't care for it.
DON"T GET ME WRONG, I love shooting, editing, learning, the whole experience, and nothing feels quite as special as seeing a photo you worked hard on suddenly becoming someone's profile picture on their favorite social media website. But...
I miss naked women.
Endless wedding and maternity and baby photos are something I've had to grudge through for months now. Wedding photos are the worst, by far. 'Herding Cats' is a good phrase to describe the job of photographing for a wedding. One thing I have found to be true of each wedding, so far, is that the most fun group to take photos of is the Groomsmen! These guys know how to take an idea and run with it, and are willing to be 'goofy' at the mere utterance of the word. The Bridesmaids are in a constant shuffle of pocket mirrors, lipgloss, and selfies, and are hardly in the mood to make a silly face on camera. Babies are cute fluffy little things on their own time, but once the giant blackened eye of a camera lens is staring them down, it is horrendous to behold. Very pregnant mothers tend to rush things so far, but are troopers for being so willing to change locations-for this they have a tip of my hat. I know you don't feel beautiful, ma'am, but you look wonderful.
There is a strange tension when asking a woman in various stages of undress to flirt with your camera. I recall worrying that I sound like a perverted old man the entire shoot. "Stick your butt out a little bit so I can see your lips" and "show us your feet, those things are on high demand" are difficult things to find to say just the right way. I had to remind myself, "you are an attractive young woman, Valerie, not a smelly old Neck Beard." Alas, there is a very small pool of people in this town, and I've gotten used to the message "Hey! I would love to have you take some boudoir photos or me, or even an SG set so I can try out, but I wanna get in better shape first." ... or something to that effect. There are no models here, just weddings, babies, and graduations.
Seeing the photos I've taken of SG girls and the excitement of editing and cropping and logo placement- the whole entire thing was thrilling. And perhaps, with more modeling experience, I would've found the right ways to ask women to do certain things for me in pictures when I'm on the other side of the camera. Mostly, I wish that I could have required more experience as a model and had chances to shoot with a whole range of photographers. It's been over a year since I shot a set for SG and it would be fantastic to shoot again.
