So I ended up quitting this portraiture job. Between being lied to during both the recruitment and hiring process, insulting wages, and general non-chalant attitudes towards photographic skills by the management, I felt it was best to leave.

When I expressed concerns about spending 8 days working on math (for sales) and 0 days working on teaching me how to pose and portrait composition I was then told, and paraphrasing here “Photography is simple, we can teach you that in a few hours.” This should have been a massive red flag immediately.

The first four days I actually made money, after that, I was sent to scrape the bottom of the barrel at every possible job they could think of. I understand being ‘the newbie’ and that I won’t get the best jobs out there, but working sometimes 10-12 hour days (without a lunch break) and selling so little to these people that I’m making government-mandated minimum wage is beyond insulting.

I’ve since been looking into other jobs and have a couple promising leads. In the meantime, I have taken several photos from around the Wisconsin River. So I will have some more relevant things to post, and an example I took of Auto vs. Partial/full manual settings.

A quick update.

I’m about to head to my third day on my own at the new job. No trainer helping me, etc. I have to admit, I have this continual anxiety about even going in to shoot a family. Been waking up every night over it, honestly. These families sometimes haven’t had a good portrait in 5-9 years, and I barely have a clue on how to pose them.

I am beyond confident in my abilities with a camera, but posing people in a mobile studio with a settings-locked camera is almost frightening. I was given a week an a half of training on techniques for selling, their process, and of course the math to do it (everything is pencil and paper). But I was given about 2 days at most on posing, and it was generally a trainer posing people for me to shoot without explaining the poses or the reasons behind them.

While I’ve been...keeping up with my new co-workers and producing decent numbers, I can’t help but see every glaring mistake I make in my portraits (shadows, aesthetic balancing, being unable to be more flattering to overweight individuals). What’s worse, many of those mistakes I have no idea how to correct the next time, so I have to improvise. We all shoot and sell solo with a bombarded schedule of customers, so it’s rare to be able to watch one of the more seasoned photographers do their thing. I feel my learning is almost all trial and error, and doing that with something as valuable or sentimental as family portraits just makes me even more anxious.

On top of that, I have been working full days everyday since this past Wednesday, including today in about an hour, and will be doing so until Thursday. It was originally going to be through this upcoming Saturday, but I believe a casual comment made to my trainer worked its way up the ladder.

The money is right, even if the hours are a bit long, but in essence I worry if this is something I want to keep doing. I’ve been told by others I’m working with that everything may feel incredibly out of place for about 4-6 weeks then you kind of settle in. At the moment, I am doing my best to endure, though whether or not this is something I can to for years and years is still currently an internal debate in my mind.

Just a quick update. Yes, I am still keeping with this blog. I accepted the job with the photo studio and was out of state all last week training. I’m now on-site locally training on some shoots with the help of someone teaching me how to pose bodies and such.

Tomorrow is my last day before being fully on my own, so I’ve been unable to find any free time and such to take new photos, but I’m confident that once I get settled in I will be able to use my days off to do what I love and shoot my own pictures.

I was offered the job and am happy to say I begin training in early May. It seems like it will be a fairly enjoyable job overall from the groups of people I’ve seen so far, though I know that depends from site to site. So far the commission rate compared to average sales is very....generous. though perhaps it’s just been THAT long since someone has given me a reasonable payrate.

With 2 days off in a row with my coming schedule it should be easier to make it to events that I can photograph, so looking forward to more candid shots.

Also, I don’t know if I eve mentioned it, but I’m happy to answer and questions, even though I know there probably aren’t many people have right now.

http://strahltiger.tumblr.com/ask

After hiking, hauling topsoil, and planting a tree today, I came home to an email from the portrait studio. The manager wants to meet up with me again tomorrow at a local Starbucks because we was in the area already. I feel like I may be able to put in my 2 weeks this weekend.

Ended up buying 4 of these off a local crafter that i found on craigslist. Now i have something to use for shows. Inching along, inching along.

I got my first print wrap today and took some example photos for etsy. I am VERY happy with them all together and am very comfortable with offering them as a product.

They cost me nearly 1/3 of what a gallery wrap does, and it really is a lovely frameless mounting option. I’m working on removing gallery wraps from the drop-down options on Etsy and replacing them with print wraps. The only downside is that no 24x30 option is available.

I feel I did very well with this studio interview. I will hopefully get a callback for a second interview soon and maybe this week. During the interview I could tell he was holding back on making a direct offer.

He very much like the portfolio I put together, and I got an “oh, wow!” out of the studio manager. As well as a few other compliments on them during the interview. Here’s hoping.

I recently dropped some of my prices in my Etsy store, mainly the 8x10 ratios, after some feedback from a friend and looking closer at my costs.

I also have ordered a print wrap to look at in-person to offer as a cheaper alternative to gallery wraps, which is the reason I’ve temporarily marked them out of stock. They are just far too pricey for most people that like frameless mounts.

Not that I like to give away wholesale price information, but to give you an idea, a regular 8x10 1.5 inch gallery wrap costs ME over $60. Makes it very hard to price.

I’ve been impressed by the features of the print wraps and they cost a fraction of the gallery wraps. As soon as I receive it in the mail next week I will be posting it here to show off.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/StrahlTigerPhoto

I just got an offer from a portrait photo studio to be a photographer for them. Their offer seems fairly good to me. 2 weeks paid training, 16% commission, and travel reimbursement. While portraits are not really my forte, I would be getting real-world studio experience and be able to work with other photographers who will have new techniques to learn. We'll have to see what comes of this. I have an interview on Monday.

I’ve polished up and edited several photos today. They’ve been sent to the printer and I will be able to list them on the Etsy shop once I’m satisfied with the actual prints.

Hopefully this will be the last time I need to use these boring text watermarks, I currently have a wonderful artist putting one together for me that has more personality! We’re just working on the lettering position.

---

The first image is a Coyote I spotted wandering around the Arboretum. Taken in late February, it was actually a quick-reflex photo. I didn’t have time to adjust my settings and was thankfully able to get this shot I am quite proud of.

All the others were taken at Starved Rock shortly after the blizzard we had here in Chicagoland. I think we were pushing -26°c by the time me and my friend were hiking through one of the deeper canyons.

I’d also like to point out that any photographers shooting in these temperatures should make sure their camera never changes temperature too fast. I went from car trunk, to backpack, then fully exposed over the course of about 40 minutes, and did the same thing when finishing. If not, you risk not only stressing the mechanics, but developing condensation and moisture inside the camera.

The squirrels were just fun nonsense to try and shoot as they dug holes in the snow and scampered around on the bare limbs and plants. The eagle, while I feel was less rewarding than the squirrels, was the hardest to shoot. I spotted him out the corner of my eye while walking along a cliff path (one that was covered in a sheet of ice thanks to the earlier sleet. You can see what I mean in the landscape photo.) I stopped moving instantly and told my friend not to move. Crept back and took a few shots with my 270mm. Then climbed over the cliff railing to get a few more shots...then walked to the edge of the cliff and braced myself against a stump with one arm and laid in the really really cold snow to get this final shot.

PS. I forgot to add that that eagle...that damn eagle perched right to a tufts of evergreen needles was absolute HELL on my auto focus. I believe this final image ended up being manual. I can’t be completely sure, as I was switching back and forth, and it doesn’t seem to save that particular metadata.

Though I haven’t been posting, I have been busy. I’ve taken time off school and have started focusing more on photography. The above are some examples.

While I’m still stuck working my weekends to maintain a so-so income I have enjoyed focusing more on my photos. I plan to start updating here more frequently as I go on shoots. Most recently I have various Starved Rock photos and several of frozen waterfalls from there to crop and edit.

I have also opened up an Etsy store in hopes of producing an income for myself located at: https://www.etsy.com/shop/StrahlTigerPhoto

I am happy to take any comments and critiques, as the interaction keeps me interested and moving forward.

I know it’s been nearly a year, but I am going to try and revive this blog. My photography has gotten much more active and I have refined more of my skills. Expect to see more posts soon.

It's been a while since I've posted, I just end up getting buried with other things, but I have a backlog right now so I should be posting quite a bit soon now that vacation is over and I have an acceptable connection once again.

These were taken shortly before I left for Wisconsin at The Morton Arboretum. It was my first time there, so I was mostly wandering around and taking opportunistic shots. I'm still waiting on a wildlife (600mm) lens on backorder, but I found my little 200mm did quite well grabbing some of these insect images. Don't mind Mr. Buzz Buzz, he just wanted my Dr. Pepper.

These are the photos I took last week at the Geneva park. I'm happy with most of them, but they are by no means my best work. It's been a while since I dealt with such a harsh lighting situation. The sun is about an hour before sunset in-front of me, and cast a strong shadow on most everything.

The river is incredibly high right now from the flooding up north, and was i more than entertained by all the ducks trying to swim north against the current. There were also some amusing grackles hopping around the water's edge like little clowns. One thing the sun DID do for me was illuminate their normally subtle blue crest which made for some great shots.

In a few days I'll post a handful of shots from my first visit to the Morton Arboretum.

Remembered everything...except the card

So I was looking forward to posting some late afternoon shots of the Fox River because the water is the highest I've seen it in 10 years. It's moving really fast, especially near the dam and there are these beautiful silhouetted egrets on the rocks fishing. I grabbed all my gear, my trail bag with water, telephoto and wide angle lens...and when I went to go take a shot "No SD card!" Son of a bitch...

So, I'm home now and going to head back out in about an hour when rush hour traffic dies down. On the plus side, though, I started talking with someone who was fishing the dam. I walked up when he pulled out a big flathead catfish. We talked for a while and I found out he was from Chicago. The south side no less (for those of you not from the area the south side is the dangerous and violent territory with gang wars). Which I was really happy about because he was like THE spot-on stereotypical old black Chicago guy. It was awesome. His name was Chris and he works for the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) Ordering and replacing parts for the city busses. He was such an awesome guy, I wish I had my SD card with me. The man drove from Chicago to Geneva(43Mi/69Km) just to fish. He told me he'll drive at least 120 miles (193Km) in a day and just stop anywhere he thinks looks like a good spot to fish.

Was just a damn interesting character and thought I would share a little blurb of this awesome guy before I head out again.

It ended up being a clear night last night so I made and impromptu trip out west do see if I could find an area with less light. I found a few, but they were all private property for the most part. Being that these photos take a long time, I didn't want to risk someone seeing me. I did find a spot at a mega-church out in the middle of nowhere (weird, I know...) and used their overflow parking lot.

I do a lot of long exposures, but this is my first time trying a digital composite. I saw a house on the hill and thought it would make a good photo. The light pollution from the cities to the east actually gave this gradient I enjoyed on the first shot.

I may later, but I didn't really do much aesthetic editing as this was mostly for composite practice. Thinks like saturation and tint/temperature. Thought I would share the results anyway.

Edit: Wow...I just noticed Tumblr's compression murdered the photo's gradient. Sorry about that.