March | 2010 | Sterling E. Stevens Photoblog

This will be my last blog for awhile, I am slammed. I’m fighting off getting sick which I really can’t afford right now. Sleeping odd hours to not sleeping at all. There are several things I’m striving to balance over the next 60 days and beyond.

STRIKING BALANCE

…between my professional and personal life.

My personal life has been completely zapped by my professional life but I recognize if I am to make this commitment, that’s the way it has to be as I begin this endeavor. It’s starting to blur into one and the same. But I’m going to need to take a day off somewhere.

…between my professional photography and fine art.

So. As many of you already know, I’m gearing up for my art show on March 26th. However, I’m also in preparation to turn my business LLC next month, developing and honing a new business plan, services, and marketing strategies. I’m currently broadening my network, working with my existing clients, attracting new ones, and increasing exposure for both my professional and fine art photography. In between, I’m attempting to maintain my presence in regional juried art exhibits. I perform my own website and marketing design and will be tweaking all of these in conjunction with my goals.

However, it is almost four months into 2010 and I’ve ventured to take photographs for fun…three times. That must change.

…between supply and demand.

Its seems my limited experience with photography is paralleling those with architecture. With buildings, thanks to HGTV and the like, clients thought architects could pull out a complete design in 30 minutes with commercials. Thanks to the advent of digital technology and its accessibility, many think because of fancy equipment, necessary quality photos somehow magically pop right out of the camera like a Kodak Instamatic. Running any creative business you’re always going to run into “Oh well this must be easy, you just click the button, right?”

The public at large doesn’t understand what creative professionals do, the education and experience necessary to do it, or the time required to perform such services. We’ve spent many decades futilely crying about it, for that’s the way it is and to much extent will remain. It is imperative that as creative professionals we not just merely manage clients and their expectations, but to efficiently provide high-quality services to keep our clients happy in a way that does not drive us penniless, insane, or both. If the general public completely understood what we did, then everyone would be doing it, right? That’s why they’re hiring us.

It’s the Achilles’ heel of any creative person. Why don’t they love meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee? We waste SO much time trying to impress on the general public to understand and love what we do, when it’s REALLY a matter of garnering respect. Respect cannot be gained by directly tinkering with public perception to adjust to who we are, but instead altering the way we manage our businesses and quantitatively illustrate the quality of what we provide. For we do not merely rely on our talent it takes a ton of hard work and dedication. The meager state of our economy is forcing this recognition and until we stop doing the same thing, it’s simply unrealistic to expect a different result.

Oh…hey.

I was going to show some photographs.

Last week I completed photography for Troy CSL Lighting at the Renaissance Hotel in North Hills in Raleigh, North Carolina. Their lighting was installed in the ballroom and the immediately adjacent exiting corridor.

So.

I received an e-mail from a local camera club stating that the local Big Brothers Big Sisters needed 2-4 photogs in short notice for an event last weekend. BBBS is near and dear to my heart and I enjoyed performing volunteer work with them before I became super sick. So I responded back to the head of the camera club from my phone:

From: Sterling E. Stevens

To: Camera Club President

Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 1:43 PM

Subject: Bbbs

I can shoot at bbbs if you don’t have enough photogs. I’ve never done events but if this is their bowling for kids sake I’d help out.

Sterling

You see not only don’t I do people, I’m ill equipped to handle them. Not like, personally – I socialize quite fine, thank you. I know preciously little about photographing people, the dynamic is so different from the still objects I’m accustomed to. Further, all of my lenses, with the exception of my 50mm prime, are narrow aperture or wide angle lenses that I use to handle architectural photography, requiring longer exposures.

This is not a very well-kept secret from anyone.

From: Camera Club President

To: Sterling E. Stevens

Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 4:17 PM

Subject: Re: Bbbs

Sterling, thank you for offering. We have just one volunteer who knows what he’s doing so YES,, PLEASE do the shoot. For heaven’s sake, the event is TOMORROW and we’re so desperate we’ll even use you and your meager skills. Since you’re already in over your head, use a flash USE A FLASH MAN and what they want is candids (jpg) on a CD. Make ‘delivery’ arrangements with them and hopefully they won’t laugh when they see the pics you developed. You don’t have to stay there all day,, just drop in and maybe do an hour (or more) of shooting to capture the kids having fun, getting their reactions to pins knocked down etc.

(Note: I may have embellished the reply e-mail a little bit…)

So I met up with fellow photographer Lee Dawson at the bowling alley. I stayed all five hours, which flew by pretty quickly. I learned a LOT about lighting, especially in a bowling alley that’s so completely…yellow. Let me describe the space. Of course, since it’s indoors it’s a low-light situation. When you enter the bowling alley, the main corridor is dark. There’s no fluorescent lighting until the staging area between seating area and bowling lanes. The lanes were filled with diffuse light. The BBBS t-shirts? Blazing white, which made me think twice about using a flash. In case you forgot, the end of the lanes were YELLOW. Now, anyone reading this who has done live event or portrait photography and perfectly understands the effects of color, fluorescent lighting, and reflection are likely laughing at me right now as I had no clue what I was doing.

I set my new Canon 5D Mark II (woohoo!) at 800 ISO, and only used my 50mm, keeping the aperture between F2.2 and F3.2. My other body and lenses were useless. I did the best I could, focusing mostly on individuals rather than overall scenes. I let Lee with the big ‘ol honking lens handle overall scenes and shooting photos from a distance.

As you can tell, the children were heavily invested in the fate of the bowling ball on the other end of the lane.

At first, the boy below was hamming it up for the camera, but the girl was shy. By the time I snuck a reticent smile out of her, the boy had to be thinking…”Uh…we done yet? I’m already bored.”

There was this ONE boy who was a total trip. Everything was exciting. Releasing the bowling ball, watching it go down the lane. When the ball hit the pins, he exploded, like, “YAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! BOOOOOOM!”

And finally, this is Lee Dawson, who, as you can tell – was much better suited to doing this than I. Looking forward to seeing his pictures!

Monthly Archives: March 2010

Striking Balance / Pro Gig: Renaissance Hotel

Big Brothers Big Sister Bowling for Kids’ Sake – February 27, 2010