Last-minute call-out

In an ideal world, everything would run like clockwork. Trains would not be delayed, clients would be completely organised ahead of their shoot, and our workflow would be seamless – to the point where the weeks pan out exactly as we would like them to. But, of course, this is not an ideal world, and this is very rarely the case.

Take today for example. Having shot a wedding on Saturday and taken the unusual step of having a completely work-free Sunday, I was looking forward to starting this week off with a day in the office, editing through those most recent pictures. That was a great plan up until about 9am this morning, when I received a call from another photographer, asking if I could cover an assignment due to his sudden ill health.

Luckily, my editing duties were not so heavy that I was forced to decline – and besides, I have no issue with helping out my colleagues; in fact it is something of a compliment to be asked to step up and represent. So here I sit on my return train journey, having spent half the day at an architecture practice shooting candid portraits alongside a design team for the client's soon-to-be-launched new website. Because this shoot was relatively quick and straight forward, I will still be able to get some editing done before it gets too late. So, it's win-win all round.

Just to go off on something of a tangent for a moment... The issue of photographer-photographer working relationships is actually quite interesting, and is a topic I will write about shortly. I will not labour the point here, but suffice it to say for the time being that I see nothing wrong with collaborations – in fact, I believe it should be actively encouraged, for many reasons. [Edit: This follow-on post can now be found here]

Back to the shoot - For those who are interested in the techical details and workflow... Today's images were all lit using one 800-watt tungsten lamp bounced off ceilings/walls. Lens/camera combination was Nikon 80-200mm f.2.8 AFS attached to a Nikon D200, and all images were shot as JPEGs then downloaded directly to our designer's Mac. Simple, quick, effective – and as I head back to the office, the client will already be discussing and visualising their portraits in the new web layout.