Revival.

It's time to get this blog up and running regularly again. 

I haven't really done much photography-wise lately. I bought a little point-and-shoot in February in the hopes of getting back into the swing of things, but that only held my interest for a little while. I did get some decent shots at Soundwave Festival with it. 

Now that I am able to drive on my own, my hopes are to get a car and then start going to shows again. Hopefully shooting more of them. Getting back into that, because it was something I was getting good at! With a car, I also hoped to start shooting some nice landscapes, but we'll see how that goes. 

Today I pulled out one of my old mag-books: The Essential Guide to Portraits. Looking through it made me want to start shooting portraits again, so. Now my head is all over the place. All I know is I want to get my camera out and shoot, shoot, shoot. 

But whether or not this feeling lasts is another thing altogether.

Weddings: Round Two.

After almost a year of being away from it, I've decided to resurrect this blog as a way of keeping my photographic spirit going. I'm no longer at TAFE, but that doesn't mean I should abandon this. It could become a great source of inspiration. 

Skip back to this entry from June of last year. Specifically to this line:

So if this wedding taught me anything, it's that I don't want to shoot weddings at all - I just want to shoot portraits.

I always seem to go back on my I don't want to shoot weddings word, and 2014 is no exception. By February I had already promised two people that I would shoot theirs - an old friend from high school, and my cousin.

The friend from high school... Well, she asked me via my best friend. Meaning, she had my best friend ask me on her behalf. Which maybe should have been my first warning sign to say no. I was told that the wedding was in April. And then it was like she didn't know how to communicate. I told her to message me on Facebook whenever she wanted to discuss it (unprofessional maybe, but I didn't want to give her my number for personal reasons and I like the idea of having everything in writing), but she just kept sending messages through my best friend instead.

I ended up doing a portrait session for her, of her wearing her white wedding gown and a traditional Indian dress. Free of charge, just for fun. But she kept making comments like, "Wow, if you're this good I might actually have to pay you!" 

And I hated that. I hated that this attitude was being directed at me, and that I had let it get to that point. So I told her I couldn't shoot her wedding. 

To which I got the response, "Why?! It isn't even until next year!" 

The whole thing just ended up being a nightmare. What happened to April, right? Then she kept begging me, and I ended up snapping and saying something like, "Why don't you pick a date first before you start asking me to be your photographer?" I mean, come on. How can I commit without a date? 

So no. It didn't happen. 

Then there was my cousin. He had his wedding in October, and I got a lot more communication out of this one. My mum basically told me to leave the pricing up to her, and she ended up charging my cousin $1,500. And I spent months dreading the fact that I was going to be shooting this wedding. 

Until about three months before the wedding, when he called and said, "We found a cheaper option." 

Fantastic! Now I can take my camera to this wedding without the pressure of having to get all those shots!

And I did. I got some shots that I was quite happy with, like this one of the groom with his best man, his twin brother: 

I was much happier for it. And on a personal note, I ended up laughing at their "cheaper option" - a photographer who charged them $750 for two hours, when I was there for almost six and would have been the cheaper option in the grand scheme of things. 

Regardless, I am pleased - and never shooting a wedding again!

Mounting.

I had my ten portfolio shots printed through RGB Digital (as I had used them before and loved them) simply on glossy paper, and over the weekend decided that it was finally time to mount them. 

I had looked around at different places offering mounting services, offering the stuff so that you could do it yourself, but it was all pretty expensive - and I'll be the first to admit that I am a poor student. A job is only good so long as you are getting the hours you should be. So I went back to another website that I had used in the past and loved, FrameShop.com.au, to see what they could offer me. 

I had bought 3mm self-adhesive foamcore through this place many years ago, so I figured I could at least get that from there. So then wasn't I surprised when on their home page, they were offering six-packs of front mounting boards, pre-cut to your desired size? 

I ordered two of the six-pack mounting boards, at 11x14' to fit a photo at 8x10, along with ten 3mm thick non-adhesive foamcore boards, at 11x14 - all of this was ordered in white. What I received was all of my mounting boards, and twelve foamcore boards at 5mm thick. I saved $11 in getting those two free boards, and the 5mm foamcore is likely not to bend like my old 3mm has. So, I guess I can't complain! 

All up, including shipping to the Sydney metro area, this cost me $130. Not bad, considering the other prices that are out there. 

Once I had all of this, I just decided to stick everything together with double-sided tape. Honestly? So that I could re-use the materials if I wanted to. Because not all of those shots are fantastic, and I know I won't sell any of them. But I can use those materials to frame family photos are art photos to give as gifts, and then I feel like they're being useful.

Two weeks; four days; six classes; that is all we have left of TAFE for this year.

Printing To A T-Shirt.

For my assignment, in which I used my image for The Angel Of Vengeance, I did end up printing onto a t-shirt. 

It was fairly straightforward, and cheap. I've had transfer paper sitting in one of my draws for several years, but the same product can still be picked up from anywhere around $20, and I bought two black t-shirts from a local store (they were two for $5). They had to be black, because my transfer paper was for dark fabrics. 

After that, I just followed the instructions provided with the paper itself. Slip a sheet into the printer and print the image onto said paper. Allow it to dry for thirty minutes. 

Take the t-shirt and place it on a hard service (not an ironing board!) and then iron it to make sure it's flat. Allow it to cool. 

Peel off the backing paper of the transfer, and place the image where you want it on the shirt. After that, you cover it with baking paper and iron it on for about a minute. (You never iron it without the baking paper, as this will damage both the image and the iron!) 

And that was that. 

My attempts were not perfect, but they weren't bad, either. Overall, I was very happy with the end result.