Freelancing

My schedule is not yet packed with freelance jobs but I certainly wouldn’t mind it. I’ve had some good ones in the last few weeks.

I try to answer my phone even when I don’t recognize the number because it always bummed me out when I called a freelancer and could not get in touch with them. “You want work? Answer your phone!!” No, I never said that but I thought it plenty of times. Of course never taking it into account that they were on assignment or heaven forbid living their lives. The ones who answered the most, got the most jobs. I am trying that now. Unfortunately, I have told the medicaid people that I don’t need to talk to them (unless they are offering me work) and the tax forgiveness people have hopefully taken me off their list.

My first freelance call this month was to shoot storm cleanup after our icepocalypse. I was worried because I didn’t have much damage at my house. Would I be able to find damage or linemen fixing power? Turns out 30 miles northwest of me had more damage than areas I have seen after a hurricane or tornado. I had no problem finding trees and branches downed by the weight of the ice. People cleaning up wanted to talk. The utility workers were scarce though. Which wasn’t surprising since it took days for some to get power back.

I got a job to shoot a dress rehearsal for a local theater company. While not a high paying job, they offered to put an ad for me in the program. I enjoyed the play as well. Sometimes the job isn’t about the pay but the exposure but still, getting paid is the point. I will never say yes to a freebie that “gets your name out there.” My time is worth something and my talent, even more.

The most fun so far was shooting swimming and diving for the first time in 30 years. The last time I shot swimming, autofocus was not a thing. I got to the event early, so early in fact that no one was in the parking garage. That made me a bit nervous along with the fact that no ticket came out when I pressed the button but the arm went up so I went in. As I walked out, I saw the garage had a place to scan a credit card. Eight hours for $20 and max being $25. But what is the arm would not go up without a ticket? Being worried about this took my mind off of the worry of pleasing an editor that I have worked with for many years. Collaborating with a helpful reporter made my swimming assignment so manageable. The day flew by and after seeing photos in focus and well exposed, I was feeling less nervous about the assignment. That was until I tried to shoot diving. Not a darn frame in focus from the girls event. How embarrassing! I practiced shooting warmups and by the time the next diving event came up, I found a good spot to shoot from and managed to get frames in focus of young men flipping, twisting and cutting into the water like a knife. My mindset was to get frames the client could publish with the reporter’s story. Getting interesting shots of the kids he was writing about was my priority. I will admit that I was not as creative with where I shot from but I was pleased with my take. Looking at collections from a few other photographers who were there, including one of my former staffers, I vowed to shoot frames for myself as well as for the client. My long say of swimming and diving began at 8:30 and it was about 9pm when I left. Oh, and about that parking situation turns out it was free parking and not the $25 I thought I was going to have to shell out.

I’ve been shooting lacrosse regularly and loving that. I’ve realized how much I miss shooting sports. I forgot about the rush you get when your photo has the peak action, a good face and is well composed. One of my assignments was to do team photos for the lacrosse team I cover regularly. I fretted over the cruddy background. Used a fill flash to take care of the shadows on faces and ended up shooting most of the headshots backlit so the boys would not be squinting. I hated the backgrounds so much though that I made a photo of the turf on the field they play on the next weekend. So using YouTube videos to sharpen my PhotoShop skills, I gave every head shot a nice plain green turf background. I experimented with a skyline background which looked pretty cool but maybe was a bit too busy. It was fun playing around with it though.

I’m told in March, the freelance will pick up. I hope so because I am getting nervous about being able to feed the farm on a freelancer’s salary. Will I be able to keep my horses? Who would I get rid of and how could I be sure they would be going to a good home? I’m trying very hard to to stress out about it. February has been tough financially. My son totaled his old but reliable vehicle so I had to get our also very old truck safe for him to drive. We had a leaky outside pipe that was creating a water feature in the front yard. The cost to repair that made me wonder if I should have just dug the pond a little deeper myself. One of our kitties had a vet visit after brawling with her arch enemy which created an abscess. The price you pay for having fur babies, I guess.

So folks, spread the word, I am available for work. Have a look at the website to see what I can do. You will always get your money’s worth from me.