Get Your Head in The Game
“I took a couple of sets while you got your mind back on to why your here.” The other Assembly Line Portrait Photographer says when we were comparing how many sets we had shot and I found he was ahead of me.
“Oh.” I say, shocked by both the idea that I am supposed to have my head in the game and that he thinks that seriously about taking Assembly Line Portraits.
I do this for a living, but it’s not exactly a calling. I like to take portraits, play with the kids, smile at the girls, joke around with the men, and share my war stories with the people I work with. But I never think that I need to have my head in the game, because I never think the job needs that much of my attention. I am reading a book, writing a blog post or two, talking about this, that, and the other thing-and once in a while shooting a portrait.
Which brings us to that other definition of ‘Professional’-taking pride in what you do and doing the best that you can. Such as giving the Job your full attention. It should be noted that this other Assembly Line Portrait Photographer-who seems to take offense at my writing blog posts during the lulls-spends all of his spare time cruising eBay and IMing with his buddies. Never while people are waiting, of course. I have been known to let people wait from time to time.
I tend to take myself a bit too seriously at times-but no longer hold any illusions that I am in the same class of portrait photographers as Elliott Erwitt. Among the ranks of the Assembly Line Portrait Photographer, I am not too bad, I like to think that I am even among the best. This is not an opinion widely held by others, we all tend to think of our fellows as hacks who crank out junk while we create art.
This fellow I am working with still takes offense when the occasonal Subject says they are Real Photographers. To me it is little more than a joke. I have seen good years where I have made more than most of the Real Photographers out there-so let them have their degrees and their ten thousand dollar cameras.
I jokingly asked him if this was what he always wanted to be when he grew up and he says yes. This is another shocker. You wanted to be an Assembly Line Portrait Photographer? No, he wanted to be a Photographer and this was just the way that dream ended up manifesting.
I heard a comedian one time who said he wanted to be a tourist when he grew up, as they always had lots of money and were always going to cool places. I still want that job myself, but I have never been able to get down that whole travel photographer/writing thing. Requires focus and a topic and other silly things. So I have traveled around the country taking Assembly Line Portraits. It has not always been easy, but I have enjoyed it for the most part.
The Company has recently decided to start grading it’s photographers-on centering, variety, lighting, and expressions-among other things. In the last round of evaluations I came in 6th out of about 30 Assembly Line Portrait Photographers. I don’t feel either good or bad about this, my fellow Assembly Line Portrait Photographers are mostly button pushers, but a handful of them are more experienced photographers like myself-so they are the ones that beat me in this new grading system.
When I first started at The Company their grading scale consisted of Good or Needs Work. The one or two times I got one of those reports it said Good. In the Old Days all The Company cared about was a set of standard rules-they knew that they were running an Assembly Line back then. Now they are confused as to what, exactly, they are. They also seem to be genuinely surprised that people who have been trained to take identical portraits-take identical portraits. I got bad marks for using The Standard Set.
Another thing I got bad marks for was Lighting, which is a bit surprising to me as I take a bit of pride in my lighting. But The Lab doesn’t like high contast images-like all Labs they love flat, even light that they can print on the fly without having to stop and think about it. Which is also why all Assembly Line Portraits tend to look alike.
Makes sense when you are running ten thousand prints at a time. Doesn’t make sense if The Company is telling it’s Photographers to be creative and use different lighting-the same lighting that The Lab hates. The Company is becoming more and more schizophrenic. This total lack of communication between the departments means that we are never able to make all of The Company happy at the same time.
In theory all of this stuff is going to help of make portraits the Subject will want to buy, in theory.
When I first started Shooting there was seldom any down time. I always have a book close at hand, but seldom had time to read anything. This made the days hectic and exciting and exhausting and-they went by quickly. Now we have hours a day of sitting around tweedling out thumbs.
So we tend to sit around talking, or surfing the web, or writing, or…I hear someone at the door-hmm, Is there someone here for portraits?