Just when I thought I was blogging again...

I got a very time consuming gig. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm photographing rehabbed homes for a non-profit and, I guess, the city of LA. Their website goes live next month, so I've spent pretty much the last three weeks shooting a crap load of homes.When I'm not shooting, I'm editing. The only reason I have time to write this, is because I'm waiting for photos to export.

I had just enough time to run away for my birthday...very fun, but very inconvenient! That really cut into my editing time...not to mention how distracting my mother and sister are! despite the inconvenience of my birthday, it was exactly what I needed. My mini-birthday-weekend was far too short and I was back to work far too soon.

Luckily, I've had Colleen to help with the shooting. She's been my assistant, stager, prepper, closer, and key holder...she's also been a form of entertainment. Her job starts when we get to a property. She hops out of the car and unlocks the gate. Then she has to go on a hunt for the lock box containing the keys to the house. Generally, if the instructions say the box is on the front porch...it's most likely on the back porch. They're never quite where they say they'll be. In most cases, we just search around the entire house.

At one of the houses, the instructions said the keys were on the back porch. She headed to the back and I started to photograph the front exterior. I got one shot off before she came back around the corner mumbling about how tall people need to appreciate that there are short people in this world. Interesting. She then told me that she was going to need to use the step stool, because the builder is obviously 6'4'' and built the fence too high for anyone to reach over and unlock. So, I went to the car, pulled out the step stool, handed it to her, and got back to shooting.


Another minute went by and I figured she had gotten through the gate. Until she came back around the corner and asked me to come look at something. Some of these houses are not in the best neighborhoods. Honestly most of these houses are in South Central...which turns out isn't as bad as they say. Watts, however, is as bad as they say. So, I followed her around the corner not knowing what to expect.


I did see exactly how tall that damn fence was...I completely understood why she was grumbling. The fence was tall. I was actually about to ask her if the step stool was tall enough, when I saw that she had gotten the gate open. Cool. Then she pointed out the problem.

While there was a gate, there was actually no fence attached to the gate or between the two houses. HA! She was so focused on the gate being tall that she missed the fact that she could have just walked around it! I'm still giggling about that!

My next favorite thing has been her staging aesthetic...always classy! She tried this one out to see if I actually pay attention when I'm photographing. I'm happy to know that I pay a bit more attention than I thought I did, cause I caught it pretty quickly.

Anyway, it's been busier than crap for me. Hopefully, after July 1st, I'll be a bit more relaxed and more into a routine for this company. It's a two year contract, we're just in a real push to get what they have online. Not to mention that I have a client that keeps sending me referrals...it's yay and wait hold on, I'm too busy, all at the same time. I love it though!