When I entered into 10th grade I had an interest in graphic design and photography and in that year I took both classes and did some of my hardest work in them. In photography I was voted to have the best picture out of the class in the three evaluations we did; in graphic design my teacher asked if I found a poster off line and copied it because he couldn’t believe that the poster I created was all original work. To be fair I had some knowledge and experience of what to do in both classes where the rest of the class didn’t, but I did work twice as hard to make everything perfect. Since then I have made website layouts for larger end companies and I have taken senior portraits for students and I have been getting paid as much as a professional does. On January 14th 2011 I took over one hundred pictures of myself, edited ten, and then posted three on my blog and on January 16th I got an email from the lead singer of a manger band that wanted me to shoot and edit pictures of their upcoming album. I had known of the band for a year or two and I have gone to their shows but I never imagined working with the guys who created music I loved and it was all thanks to the hours I put in working on not only the photo shoot by myself but also the work I had put in for the past 6 years.
In the past I have taken pictures for people they wanted their pictures to be on their business cards so they had something to show off and all I would get to do is remove unwanted acne or make them look skinnier than before. It’s always rewarding when people look at the images I edited and they smile because they “look 10 years younger” but it’s not fun for me when it gets to that point where the biggest change is hiding something all I am doing is working. When I have made websites for people they want something basic and it looks nice. They never pay me to make something graphic and bold because the businesses I have worked with do not like that sort of thing and once again my job becomes a job and it’s not fun anymore.
As I started to work with different people and different companies I started to notice a trend of “professionalism” and this is what started to turn me away from photography and graphic design. In January 2010 I started to make video’s on YouTube and once again I found people who needed a video editor, so I took the jobs. But just like in the past they wanted professional work with no creative freedom for me, the artist. On my own time during the past few years I have been doing work but also my own stuff, posting it on my blog and gathering attention from other people.
Now, I have exchanged emails with the people from the band and the management and on February 3rd I got to do the shoot with the band. I had no idea what to expect so I gathered my camera, my lens’, and my lights and packed my car and met with them at a vacant lot new Santa Rosa. When I got there it was just them and a few friends which is always intimidating because I have never been good with meeting new people and a whole crowd of ten people terrified me. So we started to shoot and the best part of the whole shoot was when the lead singer told me, “do whatever you need to do, you are our boss today.” So we shot over 600 pictures and I worked for the next few days on going through them and picking out 50 to see what they liked. When they decided what they wanted I started to edit and I am still in the process of editing.
If you asked me in 10th grade if I would ever think I would get to work with a major label band then I would probably tell you that I would but I know I would be lying. The picture I used for this essay is a picture that I will hold forever because it’s a picture that got me from having pictures on a few business cards to having pictures be on thousands of CD’s. Not only that but it could very well help my career and land me some more big jobs.
