The Sole Proprietor doesn't know how it works in the rest of the Bay Area,
but in Oakland many of the bus stop benches have color ads for rap artists on their
backs. Very nice stuff and an interesting method of reaching an audiance
where radio and TV advertising would probably not be cost effective. These include
ads for records and movies (on tape) and the Sole Proprietor
photographs new ones whenever he finds them for his collection.
One of the Sole Proprietor's co-workers was given a surprise shower
by her friends and the Sole Proprietor was asked to shoot pictures. Absolutely.
Nice shower. Nice lunch. Used a 36 exposure roll of Vericolor III, which
is recommended for portraits and weddings. Although it is rated at ISO 160,
the Sole Proprietor took Kodak's advice and shot it at 125.
Using the SB-26 strobe mounted on a Stroboframe bracket with the Nikon F5,
the room was large enough so he didn't have to worry too much about compensating
for the white walls. The client was happy with the results and wants the negatives
to get blow ups of the group shot included here. Photographers never give up
their negatives, but in this case, maybe they do.
The more photography he does, the more the Sole Proprietor realizes that
the way you get better is to shoot a lot of film and analyze it so you can get
the technical parts down pat. Without that, you can't get on with looking for
what it is you want to shoot. What expressions are you looking for, what
juxtaposition of bodies, what lighting? That's why its nice to shoot just
for the cost of the film and processing. It becomes cheap for the people
who want the pictures and is cheap for the beginning photographer to
learn his or her trade. When you hire someone to photograph an event,
such as a wedding, where the photographs really do have to turn out, period,
you hire a real photographer and pay the rate.
