Post mortem on a real job. Not an influencer job. Not a Vlog job. Just a real, day-to-day job.

 If you looked to YouTube and its photo influencers to understand what a photography job looks like you'd come away, most likely, thinking that it's all about photographing young adult females who want to be models or actors, or that it's all about landscapes. And while projects like that are fun, and what people might like to see on YouTube as entertainment, they don't seem to me to be the kinds of jobs that directly pay the bills for working practitioners. Sure, the affiliate cash might be good but until you've stoked the flames of the YouTube content factories doing photo shoots like that are a tough way to grab for cash. A hard way to keep your kids in shoes and a crap shot at you ever being a retired photographer with a healthy bank account.

I thought I'd dissect a simple but fun job I did yesterday afternoon. It took a couple of hours, pays okay and puts me in front of fun and creative people --- who I like.

I've been photographing the marketing images for Esther's Follies in downtown Austin, Texas for at least the last 20 years. They are a comedy troupe. The do a lot of bi-partisan political satire as well as poking fun at whatever is in the news. Or weird stuff that's trending in Austin. The actors are all incredibly professional. The troupe owns their own building in downtown. They are solid. They have a great bar.

Maybe once a quarter they get in touch to add to their library of photography. Maybe it's because they've added new actors or maybe they've put up all new material and need new images for advertising, website and other promotional stuff. I'm always happy to work with them because they are smart, fun, loyal and appreciative of what we bring to the mix. 

With the elections coming up quick they wanted to add images of a new cast member who is portraying Kamala Harris. They also have a new skit about the supreme court and needed images for that. 

We nearly always proceed in one of two ways. Either I come to a live show, sit in the middle of the audience, and try to capture the high points in a fast running show, all available light, no rehearsals and no stopping for do-overs. You get what you can get. And yes, I've continued shooting even after having a gin and tonic spilled over my head and on my camera by a very inebriated audience member....

The other way we photograph, and this is a more frequent method for us, is to come to a dress rehearsal, set up flashes (wanna freeze action and sometimes these guys move fast!!!) and shoot quick set-ups on the stage. These are great because you can ask for an action, a gesture or a grouping of people to be set up again and again until you know you've nailed it. Then I go back to the office and massage the files so the backgrounds come up, the rough edges are sawed off in post production and all the white balance is uniform. That's the kind of shoot we did yesterday.

When we traded emails we discussed scheduling mostly. The actors would be ready to start going through their short skits, in costume, at 5:00 pm. I wanted to be there at 4:00 which gives me time to set up and quickly test my lighting but also gives me a buffer in case downtown traffic is worse than usual. And usually, on a Friday afternoon in the heart of downtown, it can be gruesome. Another reason to arrive early is parking. I like to find street parking right near the theater but if it's non-existent I need time to roll into a parking garage and wheel my gear a block or so to the theater. It's a real consideration.

As you can see from the photo at the top of the blog post I used a pretty flat, three light set up, basically washing the stage from the front. 

I started pre-production the evening before. I figured out which camera I wanted to use and which lens. I put multiple batteries on chargers and then turned to the lighting. I've sold off all my big, plug in the wall, studio electronic flash lights so I rely now, for shoots like this, on my Godox AD200Pro flashes. Small, light and powerful enough to do most jobs --- and a lot easier to transport. All the batteries for these lights also go on chargers --- to keep the camera batteries company. With all the little indicators flashing correctly I head to bed. 

The next day, the day of the shoot, I finish the packing. I land on using the Leica SL2-S with the 24-90mm Leica lens as my camera of choice. The smaller file size (24 megapixels versus the 47 megapixels of the SL2) lets me shoot raw files more quickly and the camera has a much bigger buffer. The smaller raw files are also less of a burden when post processing. I set the white balance at 5500K and the ISO at 400. A very good compromise between managing flash power and getting good, low noise files.

The flashes get triggered by a Godox flash trigger. The new one that's dedicated for modern, contemporary Leica cameras. I test each flash to make sure it's functioning correctly and that the battery indicator shows "full". I toss an extra set of the lithium batteries into the Think Tank roller case. The case holds the camera and lens, extra camera batteries, three AD200 Pro flashes, three extra batteries for the flashes, the dedicated flash trigger. A secondary flash trigger. Extra double "A" batteries, and a roll of tape. Just in case. 

In the stand bag I've got three Manfrotto Nano stands. The plus models. They go up high enough and they are rated to hold a "whopping" eight pounds of stuff when extended. I use them because they are much lighter than my usual studio light stands and since I have to carry them myself the weight matters...to me. Into the bag also go three umbrellas. Two 32 inch, silver interior versions and one 45 inch version with a white interior. That's it. Now we're good to go....almost. Just out of tradition, paranoia, habit, whatever -- I have to take along a back-up camera and a lens. I fish around in the filing cabinet drawer and pull out an original SL that has a Voigtlander 50mm APO on it. Now I'm ready.

I have one rolling case and one manageable, short stand bag to corral. For short distances the stand bag can actually ride on top of the rolling case. It's all so different from the film days when we needed big lights, big stands and big everything else. And people to help haul the stuff around, and set it up.

I went to lunch on Friday with a photographer friend and we had a wonderful time. He's collecting and shooting with various Leica cameras, everything from an original M3 all the way through to the new mirrorless models. He taught me a few things about various DNG compatibilities that I never knew. He works in a different field, not photography, but is one of the more gifted amateurs I have ever met. And he knows how to do his research. We discussed the Q3-43 and we both concluded that it was a smart product for Leica. When we'll get ours is a question, the answer to which is out of our hands....

After a long and happy lunch I headed back home to put the case and stand bag in the car, check in with B. and then head out from my neighborhood into the middle of downtown. The total distance is less than 5 miles but on a Friday afternoon, with happy hours cropping up at every restaurant and bar, with people rushing to get home or rushing to get to downtown clubs, it can take a lot longer than the mid-day journey of about 20 minutes. During the Christmas holiday season I've had trips to the Four Seasons Hotel (just blocks away from Esther's Follies) take over an hour --- in stop and go (but mostly stopped) traffic into the heart to the city. And nobody wants their photographer to show up late...

The city was bustling yesterday and we're already starting to see traffic jams around the park where the Austin City Limits music festival is held. The first weekend for the two weekend festival starts on October 3rd or 4th but with an expected crowd of 100,000+ per weekend the set up for the event takes a long time. We locals suffer for it but I guess the music fans appreciate the event as much as local hotels and merchants appreciate the bump in revenue. 

I left our H.Q. at 3:30 and got to a convenient and close parking space right at 4:00. Traffic was less bad than I thought but less good than it should be. Just sayin. I stuck a credit card in the parking meter and it got rejected as "invalid". I stuck a different card in the machine and got the same message. I tried. I really did. But whatever parking ticket I might have gotten is only five or ten dollars more than what the meter would have wanted and a parking ticket costs about half or less of what garage parking (and a longer walk) would have cost. 

There is a ritual when you go to a theater where you have worked and collaborated with mostly the same people for a long time. It's the greet and hug. Followed by the quick catch-up. How has everyone been? What's new? Who is our new Kamala? Anything different around the stage that I should know about? Are we on time for a five o'clock start? 

Once the greet and hug is over everyone suddenly leaves me to my own devices while they go off to change into their first bit of wardrobe, rehearse lines, and all the stuff actors do to warm up before a performance. I set up my three light stands, add the lights, add the umbrellas, check all the wireless settings, make sure each light fires and that they are being correctly controlled by the triggers. 

I set up the camera and do a few test shots. All good. Now I've got 40 minutes before we start so I head across the street to the Hilton and duck into their full service Starbucks shop. It's a desperate move since I've come to the conclusion that their drip coffee absolutely sucks. I'd rather even have McDonald's coffee. At least it's not "burned." I choose a medium size latté instead. Can't believe I'm paying nearly six bucks to have a mediocre cup of stuff. I also bring along a cold brew that one of the actors pleaded for on my way out the door. It's good to keep the cast happy. 

We set up for the first act and start shooting. They are running the skit just like they do in the show and are depending on me to come in cold, identify the high spots and capture them with acceptable composition and perfect exposure. I sure try to. 

We're about five minutes and 60 frames in when the EVF shows me the flash and the camera aren't working as they should -- together. With a group of actors and techs trying to get this shoot done before the evening's seven o'clock performance (with a full audience) I can't waste time trouble shooting this. I call a quick stop and go over to the rolling case. I switch lenses and put the zoom onto the back-up camera (preset identically to the primary camera) put the trigger on the SL and fire a couple of test frames. All good. Back to places and we start again, from the top. 

There are a number of set ups where there is a primary actor out in front and a group of actors ten or so feet behind them. I know we'll have a lot of fall off from the front person to the back group but we can't stop to re-light. There is a fairly easy workaround in post processing with Lightroom. You select the file at the front of a bunch of similar files and go into the masking tool. You hit "select background" and wait while the program automatically masks out the foreground. If you've made a good exposure for the foreground person you can now, with the background available separately, make exposure and shadow corrections to the background. If you shot twenty or thirty frames of the scene at the same settings because you were looking for the perfect expressions across a whole group you can now sync the file with the nice foreground and corrected background (automatically adjusted for each individual frame) across all twenty frames and the program will automatically select the foreground object in each frame and apply the corrections to the image background. Voila. You now have a beautifully lit frame x 20. 

In the space of an hour and fifteen minutes I've shot about 700 raw files. I've been taking direction from their resident art director, a guy I've now worked with for over 20 years. It's almost like telepathy. His suggestions work for his intended uses.  The files look great. We'll toss out the ones with bad expressions or the handful where I didn't quite nail focus. 

When we get the last act photographed the actors hustle off to get ready. All of a sudden what had been a bustling room,  filled with fun actors and techs, is now empty and quiet. They've all shouted a quick "goodbye" as they scattered. The woman who is the head honcho reminds me to bill them soon. They pay the minute they get an invoice... 

Now I'm alone and I'm taking down the stands, packing up the lights, the umbrellas and the cameras. I wave at the staff behind the bar, step outside, detour around the "unhoused" person sleeping across the sidewalk and toss the stuff into the trunk of the car. It's hot outside. I turn up the air conditioning and wend my way through the trailing edge of rush hour traffic. I get home quicker than the trip the other way. I pull the two bags out of the car and head into my office. I want to see the files before I head into the house for dinner. I pull the memory cards out of the two cameras and load their images into Lightroom. The thumbnails look good. I can relax now. I know we've got what we need for the theater folks. I head into for dinner and some down time knowing I'll be back in the studio the next day, right after swim practice, to start working on the files. I want to touch all the files that need tweaks and get them to the client before the end of the day Saturday. There is nothing hanging over my head if I refuse to procrastinate. 

That way the schedule is clear for the next adventure. 

It's a small, local theater. Their bill is small. About $1200. I would never get rich doing only jobs like this but the positive note is that projects like these are fun. More fun than most corporate stuff. And the people in the theater have also, over the years, become friends. It feels good to do work with friends. 

And that's my summary of a small job. I like them when they crop up.