The Dawson Chronicles

Well, here we go.   Lets start with a basic introduction, shall we?

 

My name is Sharon Dawson.  (Wow!  How was that for a snappy introduction? Right up there with the title! I feel like I should be standing up in a circle of chairs or something…)  and I’ve been a photographer for over two decades.  In the course of those years, I have experienced some of the oddest things.  I also happen to be a professional writer, although my ability to introduce anything may have you seriously questioning the merits of that career choice for me.  Recently, it was suggested to me that I consider writing a “how to” book for photographers.  I had to laugh, seriously, in this day and age, the last thing we need is another “how to” book on photography.  I announced that I had no intention of writing the “how tos” of my business down for some upstart to read and than proceed to undercut me.  At that point, I stopped laughing because I immediately felt like my father toward the end of his career, growling about these “youngun’s” taking over.  Then I felt old and dropped the entire conversation in the name of pursuing yet another useless face cream for the seriously-over-40.  But the pestering continued long enough that the writer in me won out over the cryptic middle-aged vain part of me, and I started thinking about a different kind of How To book.  And so, I give you the my version of a how-to book:

 

How to Deliver a Baby while Still Photographing The Wedding

(And other things you may need to know that do not involve the F-Stop).

 

Given my extensive career and my propensity to get myself in the damndest situations, I feel I have much more mataerial to put in this sort of a How To book, as opposed to a technical book, which would pretty much read as, “Turn the camera on and give it a go.  If you suck, turn it off and consider another book for further instruction.”  Besides, while I suppose I do know the basics, if I stopped to think about them ever, but if the truth be known, most of my success is based on my artistic ability and technology generally irritates me.  My approach to anything to do with actually dealing with the camera itself was to shove it into the hands of one of my male assistants, who love anything technical, and say, “Fix it.”

 

Which brings me to another point of this introduction- I feel I must give you a cast of characters.  Two things are inherently true about me:  One is that God gave me a life that required a lot of assistance to get through.  The other is that I see no reason why I should keep all these insane episodes to myself, so I rounded up a few dozen people to share my craziness with.  For some reason they all still love me, although I’m quite sure the number of times they have wanted to kill me is up in the thousands.  They will be contributing their side of a particular story from time to time. 

 

Doubtless the name you will hear the most is Collin.  He is my oldest son, and came to work with me at the age of 15.  He is 23 at the time of this writing and still speaking to me.  He was useless in the office, but in the field he was my right arm and I will forever treasure our time on the road together.

 

I have had a lot of assistants.  Many people have asked to work with me over the years and have been around for a short time, but I am going to keep this to my solid crew, which consists of Ana, Amanda, Mike, Mark, and Shaq.  Mark and Shaq were grooms of mine and for some odd reason enjoyed the torture I could conjure up with a camera in my hand and wanted to work with me.  They are still here.  Mike and I met in the back of a pub one day, spent no less than 5 hours talking, became the best of friends and he worked for me for many years before running off to Hawaii.  Ana was my first assistant.  Prior to her, I had only worked alone.  We used to joke that she was an “abstract” photographer in the beginning and I never counted on her for a shot, she was mostly my pack mule.  But her sense of camaraderie and humor kept her with me and she quickly became one of the best photographers I know.  Amanda worked in the office and in the field with me.  She’s more like my daughter than an employee, however, and really a trooper.

 

Another one we may be hearing from is my long-time supplier and friend, Suzie.  Saint Suzie, maybe.  I’m only one nut-job photographer; she had lots of us.  Of course, I think I may have been the worst.

 

The office has had a myriad of characters, but at this time I’m not sure how much I will get into that aspect.  But I’ve worked with some wonderful people.  An artist for a boss is not an easy thing to deal with.  Thank goodness they didn’t have ADHA when I was a kid or they would have institutionalized me.  A creative mind is not always a linear mind and when you work for a woman who is re-routing you every seven seconds, well it can’t be easy.  So when it comes time for them I will introduce them, but I would be remiss if I did not mention one person right now who worked for me for years and years, who stuck with me through thick and thin, both professionally and personally.  She was my secretary and she had to retire this last year.  Her name is Doris and this book is dedicated to her.

 

(Because this eventually will be a book, damnit, even if I have to Xerox the pages, staple them together and sell the darn thing on a street corner.  I guess that wouldn’t be so bad, actually, at least I would have something to sell on a street corner that someone might actually want at this age…..)

 

So, I hope you enjoy my stories.  And just remember:  It can happen to you!

 

 

(Please note, new stories will be at the end of this blog, not at the top.)

 

 

 

  

It started off as a fairly normal shoot.  Well, normal for a wedding anyway.  Collin and I dragged our blurry butts out of bed and began our long sojourn into weddingville.  For us it is usually a 2-3 hour drive to get to a shoot and, frankly, we like it as we are Harry Potter Junkies and love the CD’s.  (We listened to those until Collin managed to get them memorized and start reciting them.  That was the end for me!)

 

We arrived to a room full of bustling bridesmaids and the very excited bride.  We were introduced all round and I noticed one of the bridesmaids was pregnant.  She assured me that she still had many weeks to go, but having been down the whole pregnancy thing a few times, I wasn’t so sure.  She looked very “ready” to me.  I did learn, in short order, however, that she knew what she was doing.  On all counts.  Always.  Everytime.  No exceptions. 

 

Now, one of the things that I consider to be a highly necessary skill when photographing weddings is the ability to pick up the nuances of relationship, mood and inter-bridal-party dynamics immediately.  This is where being a seasoned photographer gives you a real leg up because you are not nervous about what you have to do, therefore you can focus on things outside of yourself.  Things that may seem small at first, but if left unchecked, could serve to become something akin to sharks circling you, as you stand alone and afraid, on a tiny island clutching the palm tree of your life.  That palm tree is usually your camera, however, in some cases, it can be the bride, like when you are about to strangle the Director Bridesmaid with your camera strap if she comes up with one more bad idea straight out of 1982. 

 

However, that was not the case here, and I never hit the island, because I spotted the trouble early on.  After a few minutes in the hotel room, I’m able to assess that all the bridesmaids are good to go with the bride except this one.  I can see she is getting under my bride’s skin, although my bride is doing a good job of hiding it.  So far.

 

When I pulled the bride aside to do some window portraits of her, she decided to clue me in.  One of the many unexpected jobs of the wedding photographer is to play camp counselor of a sort.  So my bride expresses to me a bit of impatience with the Highly Informed Bridesmaid.  Seems that she is a long time friend of the groom, (which is how she became a bridesmaid), and the aforementioned Life Expertise that I had noticed was a wee smidge of an irritant to the bride.  AND, apparently, she had a propensity to need the center of attention a great deal of the time.  Well, no bride is going to be thrilled with that on her wedding day.  I gathered that my bride was going to get married the following day, but changed it so as not to “interfere” with the other’s birthday.  “Bad enough that we will have to share the weekend for the rest of our lives, I’m not sharing my anniversary.”  Fair enough.

 

As I said, this is normal.  I tend to take these things with a huge grain of salt because weddings make the bride’s emotional state very raw, and little things that don’t normally matter can become huge under those circumstances.

 

OK, so off we go to the wedding site.  The plan is to get dressed and do bridesmaid photos before the arrival of the guests.  The girls are in one room and the men in the other.  Collin goes with the men; I’m with the women.  Things are going along well.  My bride actually MADE her dress which had me amazed me (and beautifully, by the way), so I was paying close attention to each garment as it lay out and shooting away.  Outside my own little world, I noticed some random complaining coming from the pregnant bridesmaid.  My bride is fidgeting and looking annoyed.  Now I have a problem because I cannot take beautiful portraits of an annoyed bride.  So with my usual political correctness, I suggest that the bridesmaid go to the restroom and splash her face with cold water.  My bride didn’t say it, but I could see her smile with the idea of splashing her face with cold water for her!  She muttered something about people doing anything for attention, again, but was quickly diverted by me and we began shooting.  For about 2 minutes.

 

Then the door opens and we hear, “I think my water just broke”.  And let the games begin.

 

So much for ignoring this one.  I look over at my bride who has become almost catatonic now.  I could see her struggling with being the sweet person that she is versus just wanting her wedding day.  She just stared at me.

 

I looked around the room.  The pregnant bridesmaid was sitting, and I could see that she was really trying not to make too much of this – surely, at six-weeks-early, this was not her preferred method of gaining attention.  She was obviously scared, but apologizing profusely to the bride.  Bride still frozen; intermittently nodding to the labor queen and, alternately, looking at me imploringly.  The other bridesmaids were fluttering about, completely clueless.

 

I knew.  I’ve been a labor and delivery coach at one point in my life and I knew.  If it was her first baby and it was on-time, I could have gotten the shots quickly and then sort of re-routed her off to her family and the hospital.  Not this time.  This was baby number 3 and very early.  And she was well into labor, I could tell.  If we didn’t move quickly, we could very easily wind up delivering the baby in that very room.  And although I’ve done it before, I would really like to skip it this time.

 

OK – I’ve got to take over or this is going to get crazy and fast.  But I also have to consider my number one priority here, which is my bride, who is standing in the corner.  I go to her first,

 

“Are you OK?”

“No.  I know it sounds bad, but no.  I’m not.  Am I selfish?”  (This woman is anything but selfish, by the way, she is an absolute love)

“No.  You’re normal.  It’s your wedding and this is beyond a curve ball.  But it will be fine.”  Now I’m making promises that may prove to be impossible to keep and I know it, but the motto here is play psychologist first, gynecologist later.  Unfortunately, my qualifications for either are highly questionable, but I’m willing to give it the old college try.

“What about the pictures?”

“Don’t worry, I will get the pictures, I promise you that.  Just let me try and get this situation settled, first, OK?  You won’t miss out on photos.”

She looks at me gratefully.  I’ve thrown her a thread and she’s hanging on to it.  “My aunt is a OBGYN – maybe she’s here.”

 

Let’s hope.  We are still an hour out from the ceremony, so its iffy.  I confer with the Laboring One.  She needs her husband but no cells are working.  This much I can handle – we are remote, but I’ve shot here before.  The only place the phones work is waaay at the end of the distant parking lot.  I get the number for her and promise to take care of it.

 

“Sharon?  Just so you know, he’s with my Dad and if he’s driving, my dad won’t let him talk on the phone and my dad can be tricky on the phone…”  She goes into a contraction and does not elaborate.

 

So now I have to head out into never-never land to call.  First I head into the men’s room and “borrow” Collin.  I briefly explain to him the situation, watching his eyes get larger and larger.  “Why can’t I make the call, mom?”  He can’t because there is more to making the call that has to be done, and I cannot take the time to explain this to him.  (He’s only 16 at this point). 

 

“Just get in there and do your job – cover me, I will be back as soon as I can,”  I say in my most authoritative-not-to-be-questioned-boss-mommy voice.

 

I hurry down the stairs, my brain going 80 mph, and rush into the kitchen where I am met with wide-eyed kitchen help that wants nothing to do with any of this.  I tell them to get fresh kitchen gloves and 5 unopened laundered tablecloths and to show me where the thermostat is in that room.  They comply quickly as I begin praying to all that is holy that none of these things will become necessary.  I’m only too well aware that while this could take hours, she might just as easily be delivering by the time I get back from the parking lot.  As I dash out the door, I send the florist to look for Aunt OBGYN, praying she is there.

 

In the parking lot, I wiggle around until I find my one solitary bar, and call the husband.  As predicted, Dad picks up his phone.

 

Have you ever been in a really big hurry and dealt with someone who isn’t?  Its not so easy.

 

“Hi!  This is Sharon, can I speak to David, please?”

 

“No.”  Oh well.  Oh.  OK.  “He’s driving and its not safe to drive and talk on the cell phone.”

 

“Yes, but this is important, this is about his wife…”

 

“No, his wife isn’t here.  She’s at a wedding.”  Good to know.

 

“Yes, but she’s having a baby.”

 

“Yes, she is.  We are so proud.  This is her third baby, you know.”

 

“No, I mean, yes.  Yes, that is great. But she is having the baby NOW!.”

 

“No, she isn’t due until August.  She’s having the baby in August.”

 

Static, lost bar, line goes dead.  Oh boy.  I’m 211 miles away from the bride and now I have to explain to a man that, well, yes, she might be due in August, however, babies have their own agendas and now is now is NOW!  As in Right now!  I’m approaching frantic, as I re-dial the phone.  Keep on breathing, breathing breathing…

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hi. Can I speak with David?’

 

“No.  He’s driving right now.”  Dejavu.  “Who is this?”  We do it again.  “Yes, I know she is having a baby, but we are going to be late for the wedding.  We are going to a wedding and we have some stops to make first.  The wedding is in 2 hours, so we can’t be late.”  God willing the baby isn’t here in two hours.

 

I’m seriously considering yelling at the top of my lungs into the phone “your wife is in labor” in the hopes that the husband will hear me, but I am in serious doubt of my success.  I have to deal with dad and I know it.  “Your daughter is in labor.”

 

“No, that can’t be.  She isn’t due for two months.”  Now, you gotta love a man who is this text book.  Nope.  Can’t be happening, not an issue, the doctor didn’t tell us about that.

 

I opt for extremes.  “Your daughter is in critical danger, please tell her husband to pull over and pick up the phone.”

 

Success. 

 

I then run, like a maniac. Back up the stairs to the girl’s room.  I open the door and am beyond happy to see Auntie OBGYN on the scene and checking dilation.  The woman is clearly in labor at this point, but at least this one is not going to be on me.  I look over to see my bride, still half catatonic and in the exact same position I had left her in 20 minutes before.  I go to her and smile, telling her it will be OK now and we can…

 

“Uh, mom?”

 

I turn around and look at my child.  He is white as a sheet.  Eyes the size of silver dollars, but his voice is relatively calm.  “Yeah, Collin, what?” I say in my most polite  I’m-Distracted-Busy-WHAT? Voice.

 

“Mom, I know we need to capture the moment and all that, but can you please tell me just exactly HOW many and WHICH moments you want me to capture?  And can you tell me that right about now, please?”

 

Oooooops.  I guess in the roles I had to play, I should have also considered “parent” when I threw this poor naive boy into this room.  I looked at him and said, “Go to the guys.  Good job.  Thank you.”  Because I had time for no more, I had to get my bride OUT of there.  His parting words had something to do with the decisive moments in photojournalism versus working for Wal Mart, but I couldn’t go there.  He was gone so fast; I think he actually vaporized in front of me, giving credence to Star Trek and adding to the surreal aspect of the entire thing.

 

Suffice to say I gathered my bride and the remaining bridesmaids and we went out to do the photos.  Granted, we had to work with the time frame, but if you are good at this, and I am, you can do that.  The only other episode of consequence was almost being knocked over on our way out by a man in a blue shirt in a panic.  Guessing that was dad. 

 

The wedding was beautiful, as beautiful and as gracious as the bride.  Ironically, the baby was born after midnight so the mom will have to share her birthday with the baby.  I doubt she will mind.  My bride got her day and she seriously deserved it. 

 

I, however, am left wondering if I will ever have a grandchild.  He was dead silent all the way home except for the occasional, “I’m sorry mom”.  But at least I now know I can hold labor pains over his head.

Cousin Amanda

 

The number of things that a novice wedding photographer is unprepared for is huge, obviously.  But one of the first things that you will encounter inevitably is what I refer to as the Church Nazi.  I’ve had people tell me that this is not a nice term, and in the effort to be “politically correct” I’ve tried to find some other term, but I can’t.

 

Most Churches have a person assigned to be the coordinator for weddings in that church.    This is the person who knows the set up, understands the flow of a wedding, and can be a valuable asset to any couple.  Theoretically this would be a calm, pleasant individual, dedicated to the work at hand.  Unfortunately, a large number of them seem to be anything but pleasant.  On the contrary, some of them are downright hostile, bitter women who hate happy young couples and hate the person photographing them even more. 

You can usually tell which kind you have right off the bat.  The good ones will seek you out upon arrival and give you the rules, which usually are simple guidelines on where you can be during the service and whether or not flash is allowed during the ceremony.  They size you up pretty quick and then go about their business and let you go about yours.

 

However, some of these people take this waaaay too seriously for their own good.  You will know instantly because they are immediately suspicious of you and proceed to hawk your every move.  Quite infamous in my area of the world is the dreaded Purple Woman.  No one has seen her in anything but purple, and she is a notorious pain in the ass.   This particular church is very popular, and it runs a zillion weddings through it every day and she’s a frantic mess.  The rules are strict, they want no photography from the audience at all and we are also flash-free and must remain in the back of the church.  This isn’t all that unusual.  What is unusual is that the Purple One becomes the cop from hell.  I find it highly ironic that she considers flash interruptive, but running (yes, running) around inside the church during the ceremony, scooching her way into various aisles to accost guests who have just taken a photo seems to be OK with her.  Its unreal.  And the worse part is that she neglects to take responsibility for this behavior and people automatically assume it is us!  So we have to take note of all the dirty looks and as we are going to have to illicit good responses from these guests the rest of the day, a better part of our post wedding work is seeking them out to let them it wasn’t us and that doing damage control.

 

Another fun activity for the Church Nazi seems to be interrupting your shooting.  “You only have 15 minutes”, which I can handle for the family photos providing I don’t have her coming up to me every three minutes to let me know the countdown.  This is forever done by standing in front of my camera; taking two minutes to tell me I only have five left.  And then they start breaking things down behind your groupings so you are forced to spend inordinate amounts of time photo shopping them out of your backgrounds.  Nothing like a beautiful couple with their loving parents smiling at your camera with some maniacal woman waving her arms around in the background.

 

All of this is somewhat workable, and you do get used to it.  However, from time to time they decide to make the difficult downright impossible.  One such episode involved Mike and I.  This time the woman in charge wanted us to stand in specific places behind the alter.  And not move from these two spots.  This worked for about five minutes.  However, once the first two attendants were standing on the stage, our lines of vision were completely blocked.  There was no way we could see the aisle.  This is NOT good.  If there is one shot that the Dad is going to want all day long, it is the one where he is escorting his baby girl down the aisle and you better get it.   Mike and I knew we were screwed.  He kept looking at me with this what-do-we-do-now face and I made an executive and potentially dangerous decision.  I ducked down, hopefully out of the line of site of the Nazi, and crawled behind the alter.  Fortunately the table was covered with a floor length skirt and fortunately the audience managed to keep it together and not give me away – I had to crawl under the damn table, lift up the skirt, sneak my lens out from under it and shoot the bride and dad from between the minister’s legs. 

 

At this point, Mike takes a page from my book and proceeds to lie on the floor and snake his way around the front of the stage, shooting the couple from the floor, also hoping like hell he wasn’t going to get busted.  I honestly don’t know how we managed not to get busted on that one.  I’ve been yelled at a couple times during a ceremony and its no fun, trust me.  But we did it.

And then there are the lovely locked-in-the-balcony episodes.  Those just suck.  I don’t care how long your lens is, you can’t capture the emotion from the stupid balcony.  I get the part where we need to be non-intrusive, but it bugs me no end when my clients, who are the ones getting married and paying for everything, want the photos and the church, who is also charging them quite a bit of money, won’t allow them to get what they paid us for. 

 

And one day I had had enough.  My clients had originally intended to wed at a restaurant where their reception was, but the restaurant had overbooked and they had to find somewhere else for the ceremony.  So they booked a church at the 11^th hour and were using their own minister friend.  The minister had no issues with us doing our jobs, however…..

 

It was a large wedding, so there were three of us that day; myself, Collin and Amanda.  I had sent Collin off with the men, as usual, and hadn’t seen him until we arrive at the church.  He meets us at the car.

 

“Hi.  Have you seen the Church Lady yet?”  We were at a Presbyterian Church and they are the worst in my experience.  Odd that such a laid-back religion would be fine collectors of the American Church Nazi, but there you have it. 

“Yup.  Brace yourself for this one.  Think ‘Professor Umbridge’”, he says, “and we are up in the balcony again.”

“Like hell we are!  Not this time,” I hissed. Something in me finally snapped.  My clients were going to be pissed and my bullshit meter was swinging off the charts. 

Collin looks at me suspiciously, “Mom….?  What are you going to do?” 

I told them to wait at the car and hurried in to my clients.  Received enthusiastic approval for my plan and return to Amanda and Collin.

“OK.  Amanda, in the trunk of my car you will find a dress and an old hippie purse.  I want you to change and hide the camera in the purse.  Shoot the wedding, but don’t let anyone see you do it and don’t use the flash.”

“WHAT!!!????!  You have got to be kidding me!”  Her jaw is dropped and she’s staring at me in shock.

“No.  I’m not kidding you.  Get changed and look for the groom’s brother in-law.  He’s going to escort you in; no one will know.”  I toss the keys at her, and hurry off with Collin, who is laughing hysterically.

“Brilliant, Mom.”   Well, either brilliant or I’m about to be killed by a 250 pound angry woman.

 

The ceremony is set to begin momentarily.   I watched as Amanda walked in wearing her rumpled been-in-my-trunk-dress and one-handled, hippie bag.  She raised her eyebrows at me.   ”Really? This is OK with you?” She asks.  I pointed out that she could be the family bag lady and her 17 year-old self marched down the aisle, doubtless plotting my imminent death.  No one seemed to notice the safety pins holding the back of her dress together, so I figured that if she could keep the front of her wrinkled self to the Nazi, we would be OK. The Church Lady came up to us again and wanted to know which one of us was in charge.  (How’s that for throwing someone under the bus?)  I pointed at Collin and said, in my sweetest voice, “Oh, he’s in charge, I’m just his assistant.”  I have to hand it to him, he managed to maintain as she began to launch into this and that with him as the wedding party filed in.  And as she was dragging him to the balcony, I was able to get at least a few photos of the wedding party in the foyer before she came for me, closing the doors virtually in my face and announcing that was not allowed.

 

“You are such a bitch!”  Collin says to me as I am hurled onto the balcony with him and we hear the click of a lock somewhere.

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?  At least I got a few shots of the bride with her dad.”  We then proceeded to settle in and watch Amanda in Undercover Mode.

 

I was feeling pretty smug about the plan at this point.  So far, so good.  Finish the ceremony, do the family photos and we are out of there.  What I hadn’t anticipated was that the Church Nazi would be circling us during the family photos.  So here we are, under her ever-present microscope, taking the photos, and suddenly I spot her eyeing Amanda with great suspicion.  Oh-oh.  Amanda has been standing with Collin and I and not with the family.  Collin catches on first, and says, in a very loud voice, “Oh!  We can’t forget the photos with Cousin Amanda!”  Immediately the family is all over this, highly amused with the game. 

“Oh yes!  Cousin Amanda, get up here!” they beckon frantically.

 

Did I mention that the bride, the groom all peoples involved in this episode are Asian?  Probably not, because I hadn’t thought about that until my 5’10” extremely Caucasian-White-Chick Assistant had to get up there, towering above everyone and turning more and more magenta while we did took a few group photos, the family patting her on the back and asking her how her mother was doing the entire time.

  

I don’t know how we got out of there without being completely busted, but we did.  And for once this woman did not get to decide what the couple can or cannot pay for and what they deserve to have at their wedding.  This was my glory moment and I would do it again.  (She said, snickering, with great self-satisfaction)

 

The Trouble with Travel
After watching Jacki about faint with excitement over the car and shooting images of her in it, we now need to establish the next plan of action. For them it is going to the boardwalk straight away and for us it is a matter of finding the illusive Long’s for the batteries and then meeting them there.

I head to my car. “If you have broccoli on the seat again, I flatly refuse.” Amy announces.  I assured her I didn’t.
Becky interjects, “Broccoli on the seat?” Amy explains that the last time we shot together and took my car I had raw broccoli on my front seat. Becky is trying to put this in some sort of context.  I explain that I eat vegetables on the way to shoots. This explanation isn’t helping any, but mostly because Amy is now launching into a full-on discourse about my car.

“Oh, Becky, you should have seen it! I open the car door and there is stuff everywhere! Pepsi bottles, little containers of vegetables, paper, files, cameras, it was crazy! It took her five full minutes to clear a space for me to sit down and she nearly fainted when I threw the broccoli on the ground!”

It went on like this for awhile, but I won driving rights when I assured her there was no broccoli on the passenger seat.

I probably should have mentioned the hard-boiled egg, however.

“Omigod. What the ***** was that?” She said, immediately after getting in the car.

“What?”

“THIS!” Amy says in a voice filled with indignation and wonder all at the same time as she reaches under her bum and produces a now-flattened hard-boiled egg, “THIS! You are un-freaking-believable! What is an egg doing on your seat???”

“That was gonna be my lunch before you flattened it,” I explain.

Just about then, Jacki and Vince pull out, and are waving at us in an obvious take-this-shot type fashion. Amy, seeing this, says, “Quick – take the photo!!!”

I look at her in wonder, “Amy – you are in the passenger seat with a camera! I am driving the damn car! You take the photo!”

“How can I take the stupid photo when my camera has no batteries?” She says to me.

“Well, hell, I suppose I could grab the working camera from the back seat and shoot it, but do you want to die? I’m driving here!”

“You idiot! You’re not driving! We are still in the parking lot!!! The car isn’t even started yet!”

And on it goes, like it usually does with us, because sick minds that we have, we find this entertaining.
“Maybe Becky got the shot…”, Amy says hopefully.

“Becky is driving, too!” I said.

“What ‘too’ ?– WE AREN’T MOVING!!!”

At this point a third voice floats in through our open car windows. “Don’t worry you guys, I got the shot.” I look up and Newbie is leaning out of her van window right next to mine, holding the back of her camera up for me to see the couple happily waving as they leave the parking lot.

“Oh! Great shot! Good deal!” I say, smiling over gritted teeth, resisting the urge to reach over and pinch Amy.  The Van pulls out. Amy and I look at each other. We hadn’t realized the windows were down. Lovely.

OK, so now it is time to follow Becky to Long’s. There are two problems with following Becky. One is that Becky, for all her apparent propriety, is Mario Andretti in disguise. The other is that I’ve forgotten my driving glasses, yet again, and I can’t really see. When this happens, I tend to be slightly reliant on my passengers for co-driving skills. Kinda like this:
“Can I change lanes?”

“What do you mean ‘can you change lanes?’ Yes, I believe you are allowed to do that in California.”

“No, damnit, look – is it clear?”

Amy looks, “Yes, it is clear, why can’t you just turn your head?”

“I’m afraid I will hit the car in front of me if I turn my head.”

“How could you possibly hit the car in front of you by turning your head when you are about two full miles behind it?”

“Well, what if a deer or something runs out in front of the car, and they have to slam on their breaks while I am looking over my shoulder?”

“What the hell deer? We are in the middle of a city!???  Do deer shop at Longs?”
 
“OK, a ball, something, I dunno..”

“How long do you usually look over your shoulder to change lanes?”

“Not that long, but sometimes it is hard to see!”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t have so much SHIT in here, that wouldn’t be a problem!”

We arrive at Long’s. Amy jumps out to run and get the batteries and I have to hurry” and I park next to Beck. About 20 minutes later we spot Amy wandering aimlessly in the parking lot, armed with batteries, water, toothbrush, comb and other assorted assundries. So much for hurry.

We head to the Boardwalk. Becky is obviously on Chase Limosine Mode and has clearly forgotten the matter of us following her, and pulls out across two lanes like it’s nothing. Ann and I, however, are now waiting for a guy in a wheelchair, a guy on a bike and a boat load of cars. By the time we get out of the parking lot, I can’t see Becky.
 
“Where is she?” I ask.

“She’s up there – see the red car?”

“Five. I see five red cars. Any one in particular or should I just follow all of them?”

“I thought you knew were you were going?” Amy asks me, suspiciously.

“I do, but that doesn’t mean I know exactly. See there is a basic difference between the general-direction type knowledge and the shortest-route type knowledge…”

“Well, thank you for clearing that up for me, Sharon!” And off we go on this debate causing me to completely forget at all about trying to find little red cars until I go by a cross street, happen to look down and happen to see Becky parked a block down, waiting.

“Excellent. Nice job,” Amy says as I sail by the street.

We whip around the next corner and attempt to find Becky. She’s given up on us, clearly and heads by two blocks down. We race to catch up with her. No avail.

Somehow I got there. Not sure how, exactly, but I did manage to keep Becky at a glimpse for a bit and then I just got lucky. We eventually made the parking lot.

“Why don’t you two answer your cell phones?” She asks us, exasperated.  Cell phones? We kinda looked at each other. Mine was off. Dunno about Amy’s.  “You two better never team up. The results could be disastrous!” We kind of look at each other, trying to figure out how, exactly, to lay full responsibility on the other.

Becky then moves us out of this potentially really fun moment and back to the business at hand, by opening her trunk and pulling out her gear.  I grab my camera and my tiny pack. Becky grabs her camera and her larger pack and film bag. Amy pulls out her camera (which is now working and has batteries, but not before she had to figure out an “err” message which I believe, although she will not confirm, was a direct result of her putting the batteries in up-side-down) and her five hundred pound bag with 8 million lenses in it.
She looks at us. “Is that all you are bringing?” She asks.

“Yes.” In unison.

She ponders this. Then she goes into some bizarre itemization thing where she tries to asses what lens I am taking so I can cover X and what Beck is bring so she can cover Y and what she should bring to cover Z but then begins to worry about what if she needs to change and, well, carries on for quite some time, until Becky just puts her bag in the trunk and shuts it. Decision made.  Not that we are covering anything at this point, mind you – still being in the parking lot and all, but hell, we had the Newbie.  I knew she would be on the job.

Did I mention that the Santa Cruz Boardwalk is an amusement park?  Just what we needed: more amusement in our day.

The final comment before we finally began shooting in earnest came from Amy,  “Just out of curiosity, do you think they have a hard-boiled egg ride here like you do in your car, or are we going to have to settle for a mere roller coaster?”  Becky refused to walk with us after that, leaving us ten paces behind to bicker happily.
 

Ok, this one was funny, really, really funny, but before I launch into it, I need to preface it with a bit of education.
One thing that often mystifies the brides of this world is how many photographers are actually close friends with their major competition.  This is definitely the case with Becky, Amy and I.  We don’t get to see each other very often, however, as we live several hours apart; Becky is in Santa Cruz, Amy is in San Francisco and I live in ho-dunkville up in the mountains above Napa.
There is another photographer by the name of Jacki that I met at a talk I was giving and mentored for a while. When her husband asked her if she would like to renew her vows on their ten year anniversary, she asked me to photograph it.  Thinking it would be great fun and when I found out that Amy was also invited, we decided to shoot together. Amy thought it would be even better sport to drag Becky along, but being the one of most sound mind and body, Becky pointed out that this might be overkill on film usage, and opted just to “tag along and not shoot”.

Jackie then tells me that she has a friend who is a newbie and wanting to start her own business so would I mind if she tagged along? I don’t mind. 

OK - I need to stress a point here: this is a “freebie” for a photographer friend and its not for 10 year anniversary party, not her actual wedding. Therefore, please understand that the events that follow do not characterize our normal professional conduct.

There is nothing worse than being late for a shoot.  Any seasoned pro knows that, and certainly we do everything in our power to avoid it, but on the day of the wedding, life wasn’t having it, and I was running late.  Turns out Amy was also running late.  We didn’t know what to do, and then we remembered Becky. “Hi Beck…Uh, look, seems Sharon and I are both a little behind schedule would you mind terribly just covering for us until we get there?…” So much for Becky not shooting!

“A little behind, Amy?  I don’t know about you, but I’m a good 45 minutes out!”

“Wellll, yeah, me too, but I figured we should not overly stress Becky with anything as severe as the truth.”  Great.

Life enjoys cosmic humor at all the wrong times it seems.  And in keeping with that, poor Becky has something go askew and is now also late!  When I arrive in the miniscule parking lot, I do so just in time to see Becky frantically trying to mauever her car into a half space left by some moron who parked his Z3 sideways taking 3 of the 8 spaces in the lot.  In that panic that one only experiences when one is late, I am also now trying to park my car and Becky and I engage in some bizarre car ballet while Jackie watches bemused from the balcony.   Finally we succeed and march up to Inn grumbling about the Z3 idiot. 

So here we all are, quite late, but fortunately the “newbie” had managed to be on time. (Great.  Good show, good show.)  I start looking around to see where Amy is.  The Newbie points to the stairs.  Amy is sitting on the step, staring at her brand new, digital camera in bewilderment.
“Uh, Amy, you wanna jump in here sometime?”  I ask.
“Something’s wrong with my camera!” she says to me in horror.  I looked, but as I had never shot digital at that point, I was pretty useless.  So was Becky.  After a few minutes of watching in the wings, the Newbie peered over Amy’s shoulder, shyly.
“Um, I think that means your batteries are dead,” she quietly tells Amy.
The Light goes on, “OH!! Phew! I thought it was something really bad!” Amy says with relief, feeling again on top of the situation. She then proceeds to whip out a zip lock baggie full of AA batteries, (like 70 of the suckers).
Meanwhile, Becky and I have moved Jackie over to a tree to begin her portraits. I look around for Amy and see her, still in the same position, now looking from her hand to the bag and back again.  She doesn’t look happy.
“Good Lord, woman! What now?” I ask her.
“What in the hell are these?” She thrusts her hand at me impatiently.
“Lithium batteries.”
“Well, I don’t have any Li-thi-um bat-ter-ies,” she says in disgust, “What kind of an idiot would design a camera that needed these? I’ve never even seen these. Where does one get these stupid batteries?” She shakes her bag of double A’s at me with alarming ferocity, “THESE are batteries! These,” indicating the liths, “are something else!  We aren’t going to find anything like these here!”
Becky is laughing because Amy, the big San Franciscan, is sure she that Santa Cruz has nowhere to buy batteries. The Newbie suggests Longs. Amy is clearly amazed that Santa Cruz would have a Longs.
“Yeah, Amy.  Santa Cruz is really up and coming these last 75 years.  We even have a Safeway now, and a university, too!” Becky says through tears of mirth.  Meanwhile, Jacki is standing in the bushes, holding her flowers, looking from one to the other of us and wondering just exactly how any of us manage to shoot an entire wedding alone.

“Uh, guys?  Not to interrupt or anything, but Longs might have to wait.  Vince is about to come downstairs and see me for the first time.  And there’s the kid thing, you know… family photos?”  You mean we are there to do more than argue the finer nuances of lithium batteries?  Right-o, then.  Carry on.

Well, the short answer is “Yes”, we are there to do more than argue lithium vs. AA.  We are there to argue Canon vs. Nikon.  It should be noted that Amy shoots Nikon while the rest of us shoot Canon.  For the unindoctrinated, everything is reversed between these two and its not easy to adjust.  So when Becky thrust her Canon into Amy’s hands,
the results were quite similar to what happens when one dumps a bucket of water on top of a cat.
The sputtering began almost instantaneously.
“OH NO! Oh, I forgot you two were Canon…” the last word was sort of spit out.
Becky just laughs at her and loads a roll of film for her.
Amy looks at the camera suspiciously, “How do you focus this damn thing?”
“The same way you focus a Nikon, bright girl!” I spout over my shoulder, laughing. Becky moves in to give a little hands-on help.
“OK, smart ass, where is the button thing, then?” Amy shoots at me. Becky shows her. “Well, what in the hell is it doing over there? Oh, this is just never going to work!”
She lifts the camera to her eye. “Its not working! It isn’t focusing!”
Becky takes the camera and looks through it, “Yes it is! What’s wrong with you?”
She hands it back to Amy who tries again and announces that it isn’t focusing, she knows it; she knows it isn’t focusing because she can’t see the lens moving.
“That,” I say in my most dignified-set-Amy-over-the-top voice, “is because it is a Canon lens and Canon lenses are much faster than Nikon lenses  so you can’t see it happening…”
“Oh, you shut up! I suppose you are going to launch into all your fine Canon features now, aren’t you? The whole speech about your fancy high-speed sync, your off camera flash…”
“Wait a minute!” Becky holds up her hand to interrupt the beginnings of another rousing Sharon vs. Amy - Canon vs. Nikon discussion, “What high speed sync?” She asks me.
“You don’t know about this?” I say, incredulously,  “Oh, , here let me show you – this is so cool…”
“Uh, guys?” It’s Jacki. Again.
All three of us look up.
“Uh, Vince is about to come down. Where do you want me to stand?”
Vince? Stand? OH YEAH! We remember now! We then go about the business of positioning her, with surprisingly minimal debate on the matter.
Vince comes out, we shoot the critical moments and then I pull out my fisheye. This means I must go up closer and this puts me in Amy’s shot.
“Sharon! Get out of my shot!” She hurry’s up to be next to me.
“Amy, now your in MY shot”, begins Becky and what happens next was some sort of weird contest to get in front of each other and mess each other up, which has us moving forward in rapid fire speed so that within seconds we are butting right up to the couple with nowhere else to go.
“Hi Vince, I’m Becky, by the way, and this is Sharon and this is Amy!” Vintage Becky: when all else fails, be polite.
“Hi, I’ve heard a lot about you,” he says, brightly, shaking each of our hands in turn. Jacki is only shaking her head.  Newbie is standing off to the side, doubtless rethinking the wisdom of this career choice.
We move to a small deck where we actually worked for a few minutes. The kids came in, I plopped myself on the ground as is my norm with kids, Becky climbed up on the bench to do some lovely couple shots, and Amy sorta roamed around, shooting roll after roll all the while muttering that they would be completely out of focus because of “this stupid Canon Camera”.
Then we are off to the Beach Boardwalk for more photos. We get into the parking lot and Vince sneaks out to tell us that he has a big surprise for Jacki, and would really like it if we could get photos of it. He points to the same Z3 that we had been bitching about earlier.
“Nice going you two”, Amy admonishes us as soon as he is out of earshot. Becky and I didn’t say much, but rather exchanged, “oh-no” glances and pretended to be quite busy reloading our cameras.

Belly Dancers and Cleavage (Or The Trouble with Male Assistants)

I’ve had many assistants in my day and, while the training period is always interesting, I don’t think anything will top the beginnings of my son’s career.  Mike had been with me a couple of times, but was still fairly new at it and Collin had never been out, so he came along with Mike and I to “learn the ropes”.  We had an Asian wedding that day, which was scheduled to be a long day with 400 guests.  We started shooting at 9AM

We finished the ceremony and went to do some couple photos on the Stanford Campus.  When we got in the car, I checked my phone. There were about ten messages from my office.  This can’t be good. 

One of my secondary shooters answers the phone, “Where in the hell have you been?  I’ve been desperately trying to reach you!”

“What do you mean, ‘where have I been’?  I’ve been shooting a wedding, remember?”

“Well, where are all the cameras?”  OK, this is just too weird.

“With me!  What kind of a question is that?  What is going on?”

It’s amazing I didn’t run off the road.  Apparently, he had received a call from our groom who’s wedding we were to shoot the next day.  Apparently, the groom needed him to come ‘early’.  Well, there is ‘early’ and then there is ‘really early’, as, apparently, the groom had written the WRONG DAY down on the contract and the wedding was that very evening.

“What?  WHAT?!   The wedding is today? You have got to be freaking kidding me!”  My secondary had explained the situation to the groom who was then immediately frantic.  He had promised we would “make it happen”. 

“And just exactly how are we going to do that?  Clone me?”  There was nothing we could do but punt.  “Ok, you start driving, I’ll figure it out by the time you get here.”  I have a lot of crap in my car, but sadly no Petri dish to start scraping cells into.

What I did have was all the cameras and both assistants.  I was three hours south of my secondary and the other wedding was another hour east from us.   I’ve still got five hours to go on this wedding all the while looking calm, collected and in complete control.  Academy Awards, here I come.  Good times.

3 hours later my secondary, came bursting into the reception looking harried as hell.  As I handed him two cameras and Collin, my bride spotted us and came walking over.  Or staggering, actually (doing shots of Goldschlager at your wedding is unadvisable, by the way).  She wants to know what I am doing and where Collin is going.  I explain.  She’s “concerned” that we might need him.  I assure her that we do not need him and they make a hasty retreat. (Need him for what?  He’d been terrified of the camera all day and hadn’t taken a single shot.)   She’s then worried that I’m going to leave and there may be shots I haven’t gotten yet.

I hate it when they do this and about half of them do.  I’ve been shooting for 10 hours at this point and have 85 rolls of film to show for it.  What, pray tell, is it that I may have missed?  I’ve shot every guest, the bride and groom with every table and every guest, the dinner, the dance, the nine zillion clothing changes, the tea ceremony, the wedding ceremony, the details, the ceiling and the floor.  But because she can, she decides that we need to do her with the remaining guests in yet another dress.  Its her wedding day, so whatever.  As redundant as this last go-round was likely to be, it wasn’t her fault the other groom made the MISTAKE OF THE CENTURY!. 

Finally, Mike and I manage to escape and drive like maniacs to the second wedding.  Mercifully it was an evening wedding, so we weren’t as late as one might think.  (Afghani weddings go late into the night) We arrive in the parking lot at 9PM, exactly twelve hours after we began shooting that morning.

I don’t know what I expected when I got to the wedding, but it sure wasn’t what I found.  The parking lot itself was a shocker.  The place was full of high-end cars.  My poor little Hyundai looked reminiscent of a pilot fish in a pod of whales.  And when I say high-end, I am not talking about Mercedes and BMW – I’m talking Rolls, Lamborghini, and a variety of things I couldn’t identify, but was sure had been featured in a James Bond flick or two. And about half the cars were supporting tailgate parties.  Everywhere you looked you saw clusters of people, dressed to the nines, pulling Budweiser’s out of the trunks of these cars.  It was hysterical.

I begin hurrying to the building, issuing instructions to Mike, only to discover I was talking to thin air.  I look around to find him peering into some gleaming vehicle.

“What are you doing?  Come on!”

He looks up at me distractedly, eyes glazed, having clearly forgotten the mission at hand, “Did you see the interior of this car?  Its beautiful…..”

“No.  No I haven’t.  Nor do I want to.  The only interior that I am interested in would be the interior of the building.  You know, the building that contains the bride?”

He reluctantly comes along with me, but not without pausing at every second car to cast just a bit of drool on it. 

We are met at the door by my secondary.  “Did you see the cars?” He asks, his eyes also having that sheen of Man Meets Machine on them.  Mike gladly takes the cue and they are about to start up like a couple of over enthusiastic writers for Auto Trader when I cut them off,

“We aren’t here to play Hot Wheels, guys.  How is it going?  Where is the bride?  Where is Collin?”  He points and I walk into the foyer.  

The room was packed, but I saw Collin right away, shooting five women who were vamping it up for him.  Mind you, all day long he had been entirely too nervous and shy to do anything like this, but all of the sudden he’s Steven  Freaking Meisel.  And I knew why.  These women were really something; neck lines plunged half way to their navels, dresses that cost an easy few thousand dollars and every one of them drop dead beautiful.  And my age.   I walk up to my young son and wait for him to finish, resisting the urge to blindfold him on the spot.

“Mom!”  He turns to me, eyes wide, tone suspiciously euphoric, “This is so much fun!  I never realized how cooool your job is!  Do you want me to go get more pictures of more women?  They really like me Mom!”  He’s 15 at the time and I’m not ready for his first major hormonal attack.  Especially over 40-year-old women.  I pull him into the main room, his head spinning in complete circles going from one bust line to another in rapid succession.

I nearly died when we entered the room.  When I said I deserved an Academy Award for remaining calm throughout this fiasco, I never dreamed I would be walking into the Academy Awards themselves.  It was almost surreal.  The room was a literal sea of beautiful people; there must have been close to a thousand people in there.  All three of my guys looked thrilled, nothing short of being assigned a shoot at the Playboy Mansion could have surpassed this job for them.  They were surrounded by beautiful breasts and men with keys to cool cars.  Nobody was focusing on the business at hand.  I headed to the Bride and Groom.

My bride was Cleopatra, herself.  Hands down, no contest, the most exquisite woman I have ever laid eyes on.   Suddenly there was silence beside me.  Mike and Collin, who had been busily chattering and nudging each other in the ribs over each new sighting, were now dead quiet and staring, almost catatonic, at the bride.  She introduced herself and after some rather pathetic sounds, which I believe they felt constituted a greeting on their parts, I tore them away and sent them to either end of the room to begin table shots.

They were pissed.  “Why do we have to do the table shots?”  They whined.  I just pointed and off they went, grumbling about how I have all the “fun”.  Fun, my ass.  Let’s define “fun” shall we?  I’ve been shooting for fourteen hours with an obvious six more to go with a thousand guests to cover, a ceremony I’ve never seen before, and two young male assistants who are distracted to the point of useless.  I’m not sure what you would call that, but I’m pretty sure “fun” isn’t it.

Afghani weddings are very unique.  Very cool, actually, but unlike anything you may encounter anywhere else.  One of the things that makes them so unique is the almost-exotic dancing that ensues to entertain the bride and groom.  This began and BAMO – one seductive hip turn later – I’ve got both Mike and Collin right by my side, mesmerized, camera’s posed, ready to “capture the action”. 

“Uh, did you get the table shots?”

“What?”  (Not even turning their heads to look at me).

“Table shots.  Did you get the table shots?”

“Uh, sure….”

“You got all 85 tables photographed in under two minutes?  Try again, boys. You can’t even cross this room in under two minutes.”  (Unless, of course, there was a sighting on the other side, in which case I strongly suspected they could cross the room in two seconds).

They went back at it, only to return again and again for a variety of reasons from, “Oh, I thought you signaled me” to “Oh, I wanted to make sure you still had film” to “Oh, I thought you may need some back up with the bride.”

We shoot the ceremony and its now moving towards midnight.  After 15 hours of shooting, the novelty of cleavage has begun to fade in the wake of exhaustion and they are finally running out of gas.  Hormonal response has been replaced by whining. 

“I’m so tired.  Sooooo…. Tired.  Do you need me anymore?  I mean, really, I could just wait in the car or something… you wouldn’t have to pay me!”  Normally this would be the kiss of death for them – no lead photographer is going to tolerate her assistant whining about being tired, but this had really been an extreme day.  I decide to cut them loose and send them to get a room.  As we walk out the door, I’m looking through the film bags, sorting shot film from unshot film and explaining to them how to get to the hotel.

I’m halfway through the parking lot before I realize that I am, yet again, having a conversation with myself.  I turn just in time to see them going back in the building, following a group of cloaked women.  What the hell?  I follow them.

“Guys?  What are you doing?”

“We can’t leave now!!!  The Belly Dancers have just arrived!”.

I look and, sure enough, 12 belly dancers are lining up to perform.  Collin and Mike seem to have gotten their second, third and fourth winds simultaneously.

At 4 AM I finally dragged my lone ass out of there.  Hands down, the longest day I had ever spent shooting.  My secondary drove us to the hotel where we walked into the room and were immediately accosted by the most raucous snoring you have ever heard.  Collin and Mike were out cold.

I hit Mike with a pillow as he was the closest to my bed, “Shut up; roll over; something!” 
He came into some half-life.  “Oh, oh, sorry, here are the rolls from the belly dancers…..” and in some sort of bizarre, auto-pilot stupor, he ferrets out 12 rolls of film from his bag and hands them to me.

Twelve rolls.  I looked at my secondary, “Well, if the wedding business goes to hell, at least we know we have complete coverage on Belly Dancing, should National Geographic decide to call.”

“Hmmmm,” he says, tired as well, “How many rolls did you shoot of the bride?”

“Three.  Must be loosing my touch.”

“Don’t worry.  I took at least five rolls of her getting into that incredible limousine….”

I went to sleep with film processing costs floating through my brain.  Where was digital photography when I needed it most?