Photographic Ventilation

A recent study found that photojournalists have the fourth most stressful job in the country.

And that the average salary is $43,000. I believe the study is more on the current war photographer slant than us domestic photographers...but I still agree with it. There is some stress, a lot of it is annoying and pointless. I'd really like to make $43k too.

My biggest stress currently is that I try to make dynamic story telling art and my best photos don't always get used in the paper. Why? I don't know.

It's starting to annoy me, I haven't mentioned it to anyone in power at the paper yet...but I'm getting close. How am I supposed to win awards and establish myself here if only my 3rd or 4th best images go in the paper?

Photography in general is one of those things that a lot of people think they can do, and for the most part it is. Anyone can pick up a camera and take a shot, but that doesn't mean it will be good.

That is why there are professional photographers. To steal an line from Louis C.K. talking about comedians; It's like football. Anyone can play football in their backyard, but it doesn't mean people will pay to watch it.

Anyway, partially vented now.


This was from a fire department fundraiser at Baskin Robbins. Just really like her expression. She is looking up at the ladder truck that you can see reflected in the window. I wanted to get up close and focus on just her and the window, but she saw me and smiled...ruining my cool shot.

I finally got to go on one of the rivers around here. The San Bernard River has a "Friends of..." organization and a lady said I could go out with them some time, but then never called me. But last week I covered a river clean up and got to see a little bit of the river. She told me she had lost my card, but found it I got to tag along on one of their garbage sweeps. Super sweet, I want to get a kayak and row around...but not sure how to handle getting back.

I'm not a greenpeace, pot smoking hippie...but it really bothers me that people throw their garbage into rivers and oceans.


This pile of crap was picked up in the hour I was on the boat and there is more out of frame.

Why? One of the people on the boat with me said a few years ago there were tons of appliances pulled out of the river. How hard is it to go to the fucking dump? Grr.

I'm not going to post the picture, because it makes me mad to look at it, but I was shooting a teacher appreciation thing at a school today and this littler jerkface ruined my picture.

This class rented a limo for their teacher because she'd never been in one, and they did a surprise reveal thing outside and one of the kids was smiling and staring at me, so I moved to cut him out of the frame. And the little bastard stuck his hand in front of my lens while the teacher was reacting to the limo coming up in front of her. Then the little brat did it again after I told him to not do that. I wanted to punch a first grader, well, not really. But I wanted to tell his mom on him, jerk. I wish it was 20-30 years ago and I could have spanked him and called his mother so she could spank him more when he got home. But back then he probably would have been more well behaved.

Little shit. Haha. There, ventilated nicely. Core temperature back to normal.

I also shot a business portrait today, it was actually for an advertisement but I didn't know that at the time. I was pretty pleased with it for not having a whole lot of stuff to work with since the place was under construction. The girl was cool and waited while I paced around like a loony person looking for the best spot and angle.

The sign is actually reflected in the mirror, so you can read it. Yeah...I'm a genius. :D