Saturday, November 03, 2007

Totally stoked

Let me preface this with the blatant observation that I am neither young nor hip so I don't know if "stoked" is a word that is still in use by the hip kids. In case it is not and you weren't born between 1970 and 1985, the definition is as follows:
Stoked
adjective - to be "stoked" is to be completely and intensely enthusiastic, exhilarated, or excited about something. Those who are stoked all of the time know this; being stoked is the epitome of all being. When one is stoked, there is no limit to what one can do.
And I am officially stoked.

If you look at my flickr stream you probably know that I take my camera to the barn almost every time I go. A few weeks ago someone asked Tara if I took pictures of horses for people (other than Tara). She said she would ask me.

I thought about and decided to give it shot. I figured that if I put up a small ad at the barn for 'photos by Richard' the worst that would happen is that either a) I would get no takers b) I would take some photos for someone and they wouldn't care for them. While both would be a blow to my self-esteem, it would be one I could handle. So I put up a flier with a quick advertisement, my flickr account link and my email address.

A week went by with no takers.

And then the Friday before last, one of the boarders at the barn asked Tara if I would mind taking photos of her two horses. When Tara told me, I was both excited and nervous. We set a date for the coming Sunday. I didn't sleep well the night before.

Sunday came and as soon as we got to the barn, the sun slipped behind some rain clouds. As quickly as I could, I took some photos of the first horse. I did my best to remember all the theory in my brain - the rule of thirds, filling the frame, movement towards the center, change up the perspective, look for the details, the exposure triangle. Plus I did my best to carry on a conversation with the horse's owner. After about 25 minutes of shooting we felt rain drops and called it quits. I wasn't thrilled with all the shots but I thought I had done a decent job considering the lack of sun.

I watched Tara tack up Lego and warm him up. After a few minutes I looked outside: the rain had stopped and the sun was peering out. I ran to the door and look at the clouds; there were still a number of them in the sky, but I had some time. I walked out to the paddock and started shooting. 45 minutes I had some better shots of the first horse and a few of the second.

Later that day I picked out about 70 of the best shots, then cropped and corrected their colour. I turned them into thumbnails and burned them to a CD; Tara was going to drop the CD off on Monday. Her schooling got in the way and the CD didn't make it to the barn until Thursday. Friday night I got an email - the client (I can call her a client!) requested 11 photos! Eleven! I was totally stoked!

I got her photos printed today and I'm going to deliver them tomorrow.

I'm not looking to turn this into a career but it is very very cool that someone wants to buy my photos.

Beautiful Gaze Coming for a visit

5 comments:

Caroline said...

Congratulations!

Anonymous said...

Fantastic Rich

Anonymous said...

That's awesome! How much would you charge to come take some pictures of our China cat? :)

Snides said...

Your photos are fantastic and have been for some time. Don't rule out aossible new career!

Richard Siemens said...

Thanks for the Congratulations guys!

And Julie, the question isn't can I take pictures of China, it's will you pay me for them :)