My Win – Win solutions are getting me kicked it the head( some are more like loose – win). But I will continue I am not looking at a behavior change but change it out look. The Super Shoot Atlanta is progressing well, but I tend to want all of the detail and contingencies worked out ahead of time (Expect the best but plan for the worst) I tend to build my projects around the lowest common dominator. For me that solution tends to elegant and simple, not ingenious but simple and working on all fronts.
The challenge and blessing of the Super Shoot is that I have people who are willing and eager to be part of the Daren Gray Super Shoot. Some have experience and some do not. The challenge is mold and motivating this team looking at skill sets and allowing them to manage the task they can and guiding them when they face a challenge.
I treat them all like volunteers because they are even the paid staff. I try to give them strategies that I learned from my business career that helped me to my successes in the corporate world . The best employers I ever had were ServiceMaster and General Electric. At ServiceMaster I learn no matter what business you think you are in you are in the people business and from General Electric I learned how to conduct business e.g. be fiscally responsible under promises and over deliver.
We have singed up over 60 models for the Super Shoot I am in the process of motivating and managing them to make this is a success, again the people business. The success of the event will be how well I motivate the 60 plus modes and coach my team.
Rules were not made to be broken. I have a simple rule when it comes to booking an appointment for a retail customer leave a deposit! Simple elegant and knuckle head proof. Yet me being the ultimate knuckle head I can always mess that up. I get a call from a customer needing to shoot on the Friday after thanksgiving at7:30pm. Being the people pleaser that I am agree we then discuss the shoot and all of its glorious details. I then tell the customer she must leave a deposit we accept all the cards. She states she can not but the knuckle heard in me still books it because she seems to have done her home work on local photographers…..
Friday 7:30PM rolls around no call no show but that’s okay as the previous shoot went a little long. Its Friday in Atlanta and traffic is bad. I call her at 8:00 she answers then tells me she is running late but she is on her way and will be here in a few ……… that’s the last time I hear from her. I would not be upset if she had said, I can make it, I can't afford it, or I just hate tall chocolate sexy brothers.
I placed two more calls then I move on .. I am not upset with her in the least bit its 100% my own fault because this rule was not made to be broken!
The image above is Jen Ms always on time. This was shot with 3 lights on a white seamless in my Atlanta Studio
What a week I am excited as it looks like we will have 50 models for the Super Shoot. I have been reading the 7 habits of highly effective people. Which led me to try a new approach for this Super Shoot. My challenge was seeking a win -win opportunity for the models and the sponsors I think I we have found it so I am excited.
Since I did not give you some eye candy for the last post I am including it now !
I have been away from my blog for way to long but now is the time to update it and my plan is to update it early in the morning. For some unknown reason I seem to raise daily at about 4am then lay awake with the tasks of the day on my mind. So I will debrief them in an attempt to clear my mind. Also working on my touch typing skills as I think I did not get a job once in my life due to my lack of typing skills.
These past two weeks have been interesting to say the least. I had a customer to call and want to do a 12 month calendar please note we are in the second week of January. She called the right one as studio rent was due and I did not have it. So I agreed to shoot 14 looks in 36 hours edit the images. Design the calendar and print it. Well it took 5 days from start to finish. I am happy with the results but not overjoyed. Bellow is the cover images form the Calendar. If you can remember, this is a take off from the Ohio Players Honey album. It was the hottest thing around every prepubescent male I know tried to lick the album cover
Never again will I do one, Call beg whatever these is no way hell I will do it again. This young lady who shall remain nameless Natasha contacted over a month or 2 wanted me to shoot her for free that is the definition of TFP if you don’t know (Officially it means Time for Prints) but I don’t need to practice and when I do need to use someone for a project of mine I contact them, but anyway I had some open time between shoots like 4 hours at the studio so I tell her yes I will she is claiming broke as hell so this will be a TFP and I was developing charters for K1.
I do the FREE SHOOT (TFP) she has no budget according to her, no money none, nada. So we have no MUA (make up artest) but she says she can do her own, I send over my photo shoot check list so she knows what wardrobe to bring. We do the shoot.
A day later we are going over the images and she kicks the external backup drive off my computer, it was a mistake. The drive contains most of the work I have shot in the past 3 years. I had not archived the past 8 months to DVD (wont make that mistake again). The external drive fails, SEMA is in a couple of weeks I have several automotive customers whose images are on that drive. Now I am SOL ! Cherry Data systems is other the other side of Atlanta I have had great luck with them some years ago but they are busy. I need to start designing the SEMA media like yesterday.
Long story short it took me a week and countless hours to cobble together the images I needed, I always burn my raw work to a CD after a shoot and label it. Then store it in a one of those hard shell CD cases, but not in order (wont do that again) I only index my drive.
.. Sorry I digressed I shoot 3 looks and Give her a CD of some of the images. Now 1 month later I get a call from a fellow photographer who wants to rent my studio cool, because this photographer sends me customers I give him a freebee. Guess who he is shooting Natasha now she has big budget money she can afforded to pay the stylist, MUA and of course the photographer. She did not know he would be shooting her at my studio. She sent me a message the day before asking to do something and I ended my response that “I will see you sooner than you think. “
At first I was pisssssssssssssssed oh I was pissed the hair on my ball had fist and were read to fight, but I was my own fault in that I devalued my work by doing a TFP that was of no benefit to me.This was Gods way of reminding me that one should not do TFP’s that does not benefit ME!
Funny thing she arrives at my studio and says “Hay aren’t you happy to see me “my reply “Yea like a hemorrhoid”
