5am...

just finished a marathon photo correction session.

The Japanese client job went well. Lots of work in that one, but I'm tracking the UPS shipments to Atlanta and Japan. 4:15am, they left Louisville Kentucky and are on their way to their final destination.

Yesterday, or was it the day before? Gah, i don't even remember, I had another job. A friend actually. Her magazine turned 10 and her regular photographer canceled. So I came to the rescue. But that also meant lots of photoshop work to follow.

It's 5am and i just finished the whole thing.

I needed to finish it. Feel like something bigger is coming my way and need to free up some creative time.

Speaking of creative, nah, this first...

I was thinking to myself: I need to find a good astrologer in the city. I need to find out what the planets have in store for me. I need to be prepared, find guidance and stable footing. Need to get a path, so that way i can try to walk a straight line with some purpose and level of determination.

Well, guess what? I was taking my walk to send my packaged and along the way i see this little sign - astrology, and vhitu and feng shui. Wild.

On my way back i knock on the door. A little round indian lady with henna stained hands smiled when she saw me.

"Yes, can i help you?"

Asked her about the astrology, apparently it's her husband who does it. She disappeared into the invisible curtain of curry that separated me from her world and came back with a colorful card. Vishnu dancing next to a cell phone number.

"It's very busy now. U will call to make an appointment?"

"Yes indeed. How much does your husband charge?"

"Ohh that depends. Best you call him."

and so i will today, or whenever i plan to get up if i do decide to fall asleep now.

Rain on my window and david sylvian on the itunes.

He always makes me think of rain.

a round table of three

so i did it - shot the dreaded conference.

A round table of three doctors. That was it.

No audience, no other "press"

I opened the door, saw a table, three microphones, chairs and turned to E:

"Is this it?"

and so it was, and i was relieved.

Nothing is more stressful than trying to examine every aspect of what you are doing and trying not to look stressed when people are watching you work.

Hallelujah.

So i set up the room with two strobes opposite on the diagonal of each other. Very straightforward. Was planning to use an on camera flash but ditched the idea last minute.

90 minutes later, the meeting was over, i had clocked in almost 100 pictures and one of the doctors made a comment about how he felt as if he were part of a fashion shoot.

I thanked them all profusely for being so patient despite the endless pops of light that kept on going off, but assured them that I got some amazing shots.

And i really did.

now come the long painstaking part - processing those suckers.

Along with the city shots, i have over 350 photos. Gonna take a long time - days and nights, but for the cash they are paying me, it's an investment of my hours and effort.

But go figure - 55 days late and i got the bleed from hell.

So i'm trying to pace myself between looking out the window, procrastinating a few nanoseconds here and there, working my little mac into the ground and changing pads/tampons every 15 minutes.

Life is not that bad...

prep

on saturday, i will take on a very high profile shoot. Needless to say, i'm nervous as hell.

Checking my equipment and realizing that i am missing some things is getting me a little rattled. But I must sleep, so i will leave the camera bags, cables, lenses where they are and deal with it 2mrw.

I got some wonderful news today. Max Ryan is going to be in the new Sex and the City movie!! I'm so very happy for this wonderful man. He was a dream to work with, and made me think of "old school hollywood actors" - utterly professional, kind, and warm.

I posted some stuff on flickr, and facebook but shamelessly added my watermark cause i know that the net can be an evil monkey when it comes to plagiarizing images. Has happened to me in the past. I know it will happen again. Time to prevent it.

but it's funny, this shoot came at a point in my life when i was ready to throw away my camera for good. I was all tapped out, but this saved me.

Perhaps shooting Japanese businessmen for a medical journal will be my saving grace...