On Second Shooting and Other Thoughts...


I figure that since this is the Jessica Claire Photography blog and I am Jessica Claire, I have license to post pretty much whatever I want here so today I am going to take advantage.

I didn't have a wedding of my own this weekend so I shot for a friend of mine, Jim Kennedy. Besides being a really good photographer, Jim has probably the most successful business in Orange County, so when he talks, I listen! Jim's advice on the business alone would have been enough for me to want to spend the day shooting with him, he really knows what he's talking about. I also had the added benefit of getting to see how he works on a wedding day, which was also nice to see.

The thing is, I've been questioning lately why I like to work on days I have off! This kind of thought is new for me--I like shooting better than not shooting, and most of the people who know me know that I am usually willing to come along to their weddings to help out if I'm not booked. I have second shot for most of my friends at one time or another and some of them have shot with me as well. While Jim was nice enough to pay me, I would say that most of the time when I shoot with friends I do it for the experience and don't normally get paid (and vice versa). In any case, I decided recently that I am at the point in my shooting abilities where I would have to really want to learn something from someone else's style to work on a day I'd normally have off. As I have been going through my recent work in the past couple of weeks, I realized that I am happy with the way my shooting has been going and I don't really want to change anything about my style right now. so why should I bother second shooting anymore? Then I went with Jim yesterday, and it reminded me that taking pictures is a relatively small part of my job--it is definitely what I spend the least amount of hours doing. The rest of the time is spent (or should be spent), on building the actual business.

So what is the point of all of this rambling? I don't really know! While I will still have to think hard about how much second shooting I want to do in the future (unless Saks is having a shoe sale...), I am not going to completely rule it out, either. I just shouldn't have been thinking that the only thing I could learn on a job for someone else had to do with photography.

Sorry, no photos today--stay tuned though, because I have some major things coming up this week!

www.jcsphoto.com

Posted: Sun - August 14, 2005 at 06:20 PM          

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