For quite a while now I've been wishing my day would have more hours and/or that I could sleep less! I have this feeling that I could and should do more with each passing day, but on the other hand I know how my day to day has been and I wonder if I'm asking too much of myself. Here is a small description of what I've been doing these last couple of weeks. The third week of September started with a portrait shoot for one of the winners of the giveaway "Portraits for Friends", which unfortunately I haven't had the chance to edit (forgive me Marlene and Liliana) but it is not forgotten! Between Monday and Tuesday I responded to contacts about weddings next year and I prepared my portable studio to go photograph senior citizens and a retirement home near Leiria on Wednesday. Wednesday, with all my gear in the car, off I went to photograph another group of models with lots of experience, life experience that is! ;) Set up the studio in the morning, photographing in the morning and afternoon, pack up everything and come back. Get home, download the pics to my pc, make back-ups and start selecting photos. This happens while I get ready to leave again to teach english. Yes, I have a part-time at a school here in Leiria where I work 4 hours per day and I try to pass off a bit of knowledge about the most popular language in the world today. Returning from class I typically come back to my computer after having something to eat, to continue the selection/editing process and to seek inspiration. Friday was a bit rougher because I had to prepare all the gear to photograph a wedding on Saturday, put everything in the car and also get myself ready because after classes I still went to the anniversary dinner for the school where I work, which I unfortunately had to leave before the peek of the festivities, since I still had to drive north to be closer to the wedding on the next day. On Saturday I still managed to be present at the wedding of a friend of mine, before having to photograph my wonderful couple. It's a disadvantage of photographing weddings, some times you aren't able to go to all your friend's weddings. You do what you can. I was at his place, had a drink, gave him some hugs, saw the ceremony at the church, saw them happy with smiles wide open, after greeting the bride and groom and being present in the group photograph, I left them in good company with more friends and their families and left quickly to start photographing the bride prep at the wedding I was going to be a part of through the lens. After 11 hours of work, trying to capture wonderful memories to make sure my bride and groom had great images of their very special day, I managed to leave, with my mission accomplished, and show up a bit more at my friends wedding, where the resistant ones were still drinking the last drinks and dancing the last dances. I was able to catch up with some, to hear great news, to talk about the twists and turns of life and to see my friend and his wife married and happy still partying it up! I had shot their engagement pics about 3 weeks earlier and the photographs were there on the super cute book marker they gave to all their guests. I felt that at least partly I was with them all day too. It was good. :)
Sunday, family lunch and after catching up with the fam, pack everything in the car and head to Leiria. Having arrived the adventure of downloading, creating back-ups and selecting the wedding photos begins.
Here comes Monday and it marks the beginning of Photo Week on www.creativelive.com and that's my downfall since besides doing all the rest that I do on regular days, at night I'm staying up even later watching online classes and talks about photography so I can learn a something more and continue to improve my art! On Wednesday I can still send a small gift with some pics to my wonderful couple which is appreciating their honeymoon so that they can enjoy some of the good memories of their wedding day, and in the afternoon I go again to photograph the models I was missing from the previous week, at the retirement home. Thursday and Friday continues the cull and editing fever so that I could show my couple the gallery with wedding pics and get some proofs printed so that my experienced models, and their families, can pick their best photographs. From Saturday at the beginning of the afternoon until Sunday at the end of the afternoon I put everything on pause to welcome two friends at my place. We exchanged news, talked about business (each his own), we played Magic: The Gathering like in our university days and we still saw a Star Wars movie. Yes, we are geeks and we like it. :D It was a great weekend, which only didn't end even better because the fog in the wee hours of the day didn't let me see/photograph the eclipse in the intervals of finishing up the photographs. Today there is a gallery for the couple, proofs for the portraits and a new post on the blog. Do I deserve a few more hours in my days? **kisses and hugs Have a good week everyone!
