Making the sale

I totally forgot to mention I'm going to be working with that group of people I went to NY with again. This time we're going to Fayetteville, NC to shoot more team soccer pictures. I'm interested to see how the pay will differ, or the amount of business we get rather.

I was at Best buy today and I was checking out the cameras, surprise! lol. Anyway I saw this store associate helping this guy who was wanting to get into photography so I started to move over that way so I could join the conversation (I love talking photography). I ended up pretty much selling a camera to this guy even though I did not work there... weird huh, I work at a camera shop and I helped influence him to buy a Nikon D90 which is the camera I was talking about my last blog. I had a great time talking to him. I like being able to help new people learn more about things especially WoW and photography lol. I have my second day at Ritz tomorrow for an 8 hour shift and then I'm going to go hang with my friends and maybe trick-r-treat I don't know yet. I am excited about tomorrow, I plan on learning more about the other cameras tomorrow and making some prints.

Oh! and how could I forget, I made an A+ today on my photography assignment.

Good times at the moment... yup. I hope everyone is doing well and has a great Halloween!

Ideal first day

Today was my first day at Ritz camera. I only worked 4 hours, learned a small bit and watched anime lol. Patrick, one of the other guys that works there brought his macbook pro and a dvd box of a show called Witchblade. Talk about skimpy clothing, buttless chaps on women that have gynormous breasts that looked like as soon as they swung a punch, gravity would kick in and topple them to the ground. They had some pretty killer thighs though so that makes up for the perverted breasts/ fighting style.

I was behind the counter with my boss who is a really cool guy if not a little perverted, and I asked him if I could check out a new camera that nikon released a month ago. He said "you work here you can look at whatever you want" that's like letting a kid run through a toy store with $100 bucks. So I checked out this new Nikon D90 which has HD movie capabilities that is the first of it's kind along with it's 12.3 mp and great ISO range. I really want to buy it! but there are so many things I want it's so hard to order them into a list. A macbook is definitely my high prioity item right now though. I also found out that I get %40 off prints I make and If it's only a few prints It's free... what an awesome job! lol.

*sigh* I'm still missing my friends that are off at college. At the beginning of the semester I walked into the Hemlock building which was where I had film photography last semester just to remember the smell in that building... I of course didn't realise while it was happening that I was having my best/most fun semester last spring. This semester has been fairly lame so far apart from the jobs I have been getting which I'm very thankful for.


Go Obama! I still haven't voted, I really need to do that.

Zombies!!! and Sarah Palin, coincidence?... maybe

What do you get when you combine Sarah Palin, zombies and protesters? well I'm hoping some pretty good pictures. Today Sarah Palin will be at the civic center having a rally I guess. I have heard their will be lots of zombies walking around downtown. Apparently the zombies that will be downtown today notified secret service just so it wouldn't turn into a zombie massacre I suppose. I'm looking forward to protestors since I don't have any protestor pics yet.

I'll post something later on today with pics maybe. Check out my flickr account here, http://www.flickr.com/photos/25732535@N08/?saved=1 hope you like'em =)

Where's your head at?!

At the beginning of yesterday I had a somewhat stronger resolve then I normally do to get my assignment done for my DP class that I had today. So I didn't got to class yesterday, pretty much got dropped off at school and hung out for a few hours until I found someone who wanted to walk downtown with me. I shot lots of stuff DT and found some friends which was pretty awesome, I ate at Mamacitas which is a pretty kick ass restaurant. Anyway I got all my pictures shot went back home mixed and matched my photos to the reqs for the assignment and stayed up too late while doing it. I was pretty excited about getting an assignment in on time and the fact that I had no reason to be ashamed as I walked into class.

I was having a pretty cool dream about something... Hmmm nope I can't remember what it was. I woke up and literally my first words were "fuck!"... I slept 5 mins into my class. Whooosh! out went my dreams of having an acceptable day. *sigh*. At the end of class my teacher asked me if I dropped my other class (photo appreciation) which she teaches. I'm glad she asked me because it gave me a chance to explain to her how I have been feeling about school lately. Oh! and I procrastinate... yeah I know it was news to me too. I'm pissed off that I haven't put more into school now that I have my new found resolve that hopefully stays with me for at least a few more months lol. I suppose I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do...


I have butter in my pocket right now... not in a weird way though.

Crazier then a coconut

So last Thursday, 10/9/08 I left with 4 other photographers to Long island, NY in search of a fame... or at least some eleven year old girls soccer team pic, but that's beside the point. I will now explain the trip in immense detail. Just joking. There were two different trips planned, one to NY and one to CT. I was going on the NY trip. After we had left the warehouse where the company, Sidelinesnapshots is located we drove for about an hour, got food and went across the street to get gas. As we were pumping gas we noticed that a liquid was streaming out from under the van. Will, the manager on the trip bent down and saw that it was gas leaking from a pipe in the van. We all immediately started to run away in terror but we were not fast enough, the van blew up and we were all killed... We called up Jerry the owner after I got my pally friend to rez us and cast blessing of wisdom on us. Jerry was already distressed because the driver of the CT trip had gotten a speeding ticket already. He told us to go to the airport and rent something there. There weren't many big cars there but after about a two hours of sitting around they got something big enough for us. A ford expedition which is a pretty nice car. We ended up leaving to NY at about 3 in the afternoon and got into Maryland late that night. When I awoke the next morning I got meself some pre-shaped eggs and a bagel with some Philadelphia cream cheese, I don't know why they had Philadelphian cream cheese in Maryland but, whatever works. We all got into the car and got into NYC in a few hours. That was one of the most tempting experiences I may have ever had. I was forced to get some drive by shots because we couldn't stop and shoot at all. When we arrived in Long island I was kind of depressed to be in such a suburban area. The motel we stayed in was one of the most ghetto places I have ever stayed in. After we tested all our equipment Will informed Cacey and I about what we would be doing all tomorrow. I heard about %85 of it and retained about %40 of it which ended up being painfully clear at the end of the next day when we had to sort through all my crap that wasn't listed right. Hit alt+F4 to hear about the next day...





That wont work on macs though... damn flawless computers with your "No virus reputation". Saturday 10/11/08 We got up at 5:45 am and took off to our own individual set of fields which took about and hour in total to get everybody to their own sites. My goal was a difficult one, to be more assertive then a New yorker, not something to be taken lightly. I found out that I like New yorkers and that people around here in Asheville are on the dull side. All day I ran around and harassed coaches in the hopes that I could photograph their teams. I photographed almost everybody and then some more that weren't scheduled to be there. I messed up on the documentation part of the job and because of that everyone had to stay up way later then they should have because I had to track down all the stray information I neglected to get on site. We got about 6 hours of sleep maybe less that night. After we got to the fields the next morning we had all our sample posters, one for each team and I went around handing them out to the most leader like soccer mom of them all. Before they left they'd give them back to me and pay for their order. Will came back around after it got dark and picked everybody up as we hastily made our way to meet the site director before we left. While Will was speaking with the site director we were hurrying to repack the car in it's jumbled state. I learned that packing a car was a lot like playing tetris. Our journey was a long one going through Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and somewhere in Delaware all the way to the small town of Asheville. I have figured out that when trips are 14 hours long I would prefer their destinations to be Japan or somewhere out of the country, although I love NYC.


I'm looking forward to making some more money off this job though. It's definitely a great chance to make some good money.

New york? Long island? When do we leave?

Last night I was checking craigslist for lenses and photography jobs. I immediately saw that there was need for sports photographers so I started checking it out, it said NO experience required which I thought was strange and then I saw ALL expenses paid! omg that's an awesome deal and to top that the next sentence was "trip to long island, NY" holy crap! A free trip to NY and I get paid for it?! wow... So I sent this guy an email and he replied to it today giving me his phone number for more information. I called him and apparently we're doing team photos for soccer and I get a base pay of $150 and %5 commision off whatever I sell so I should come out of it with a few hundred for a free week of shooting.

I'm going to rendevouz with them at 10:00 am tomorrow. I hope this helps my financial situation by a significant amount because I'm saving for a Mactop as Adam calls it. I'm going to be back on monday and probably wont be able to update this till then. Oh! and I got the job at Rits photography! (crowd cheers) anyway...

I hope this works out well and hopefully I'll get a chance to get over to Manhatten. I like Manhatten alot and my uncle lives there, plus there's a great hotdog place called grays papaya a few blocks away on broadway.

Well... I can't think of anything else to say... I will cover everything that happend in NY hopefully on the monday I get back but it will probably be tuesday till then I hope everything goes well for everyone.

Breaking news... Obama comes to town and I have no internet!

Alright so I'm going to do quite a bit of recapping. Saturday was my birthday and I turned 18. I went to go get a haircut from a barber and it was the first barber cut I have ever gotten that I liked afterwards. My photographer friend picked me up from my house and we went to go take some pictures of his friend in his band. They were a pretty good band so we stayed till the next one, so this big guy with a bald head and a leather jacket and tattoos all over his arms steps up on the stage and his drummer sets up and they begin to soft rock... very anti climactic. We left after their first song and returned to my house. I thanked my friend for taking me and the drink he bought me and then he left. No one was at home so I started to fix some food and of course as I'm fixing the food I get a call from my mom asking if I want to eat at an asian buffet for my birthday dinner, I said yes. While we were at dinner we saw an old friend from when I was in third grade. After dinner I went to a play my best friend was operating the concession stand for. I got there really late. Once the play was over I went back to his house and only a few mins after we got home my friend decided we should go get some ice cream at dairy queen. So we got into the car and went to dairy queen but alas! it was closed (iprobably didn't use alas in the correct manner but bear with me) so we went to ingles across the road only to find out they were closed... an then from the darkness of the night someone hollered "go to super wal-mart" so we did. We got a 1lb bag of twizzlers acommpanied by dark chocolate klondike bars, Yum. We ate our junk food, played a zombie game and went to sleep so we could wake the next day for the Obama rally the next day at Asheville high.


The next day (Sunday)we woke up at 8:30 am only because when my frined set the alarm to 8 last night he didn't realize he had set it to 8 pm... not am. So we got a late start to a long day. We got out of the house at around 9:30 and arrived at Asheville high at 9:45 and then got in the big ass line of more then 5000 people! The speech that was going to be given that day was at 2:00 pm so we were there waiting for about four and a half hours because politicians apperantely don't like to be on time. Suddenly the crowed starts to cheer as a black man enters the football field from behind a curtain and photographers rush to shoot as many pictues as they can before their pictures are blocked by heads bobbing up and people with point and shoots raise their cameras in desperation while I sit back with my 200mm telephoto lens shooting away only wishing that I was about a food taller. But no cigar the black man that everyone had so hoped would be Obama was only that, a black man in a suit. After the crowd had been fooled numerous extra times the real Obama stepped out of a blue curtain above the field and shook hands with an ROTC person and began his decline to his podium shaking hands with close to everyone on the isle where he walked. I was in the crowd about 125 feet away from him waiting for his head to emerge from the sea of people so that I could start wailing on my shutter button trying to get the picture that no one else had. I had gotten all the pictures I wanted and there was a man in back of me with a Nikon D40 just as me who asked me if I would shoot some pictures for him because heads probably mine were in the way. So I did and I think I started to shoot too many because only about 30 seconds after he had given me his camera he asked for it back lol. I just hope I got some good shots. The rally ended and my friend and I went home, ate and relaxed. later on the night I was showing his parents a technique called HDR were you take three of the same photo each with different exposures and combine them to make a very dramatic scene. As I was doing this I went to look at one of my friends profiles as an example and the first pciture he had up was of him shacking Obamas hand... I was so jealous. I vow that next time I have the chance to photograph a potential president I will get there much earlier to get the "shot". That night I put a post on craigslist saying that I wanted to be an apprentice to a wedding photographer I hope I get a reply soon.

Monday, October 6th. I got a reply to my post on craigslist via cell phone from some dude named Armando we spoke for a few mins and then he said he had to go and could he call me back? I said yes. He never called me back, hopefully he'll call me today (tuesday Oct 7th). I went by Ritz, the store I'm trying to get a job at to ask about a lens I had a question about. The manager was there so I asked him my question about the lens and we spoke about the Obama rally that happend yesterday. Once conversation subsided he told me that he would like to give me a job and that he just needed to go through a few interviews of other people so that he could say he looked at other people not just me. So it sounds like I'll get the job but he hasnt fully commited to it yet.

I still have no internet today. I'm only able to type this up because I'm at the mac lab at ABtech. lol Sorry if it was too long Adam, assuming your the only one reading this.

The day before

I had a great day today. I went in to work at toys-r-us at 10am and worked till 3pm then proceeded to call my manager to make sure I could get off right then or if I should stay longer. She said that before I signed out to come to the computer room so she could talk to me about something. Haha boy that was interesting... I walk in the room and there's the two managers that work today sitting together in the computer room which is highly unusual. I sat down on the only other chair in the room and they continued to say "Joshua I'm sorry but, we're going to have to let you go..." as surprising as it might sound I didn't feel worried or anything I just said "ok" lol. I was on a 90 day probation period until they decided if they wanted me or not... I don't think they did lol. They fired me because I wasn't meeting their quotas for credit cards, batteries, buyers protecting plans and such. I have been trying to get a job at a photography store called Ritz for about a week but tracking down the manager has been hard and now I can immediately start working if I get the job. The whole experience was quite rewarding and relieving actually because I had been thinking about putting my notice in and this happend to be a much more expedient process then working the two weeks lol.

On a lighter note I found out that I am going to be shooting pictures with one of my friends at some sort of a music festival and we have press passes! Tomorrow will be the first day that I have ever had a press pass. Oh! and my birthday is tomorrow! yay! I'm going to be 18! I seriously doubt turning 18 will change anything but... I can vote now... that's sort of cool, I don't think that I like any of the politician's right now though.

I don't care too much for people who aren't honest...

Late to life today

I really can't think of anything I did today that I did on time... well... yeah being on time is not all that fun.

My tennis class that I was suppose to be on time to today (because I over slept last class) I just barely made even though I woke up in time... I need to figure why I'm so bad at arriving early. During my photo appreciation class I got back to class after our break fifteen mins after class resumed.

It was planned between myself and my friend for her to pick me up today from ABTech so we could hang downtown but she got off work early and couldn't pick me up. I had to walk downtown to meet her after my class got out and when I got there I called her more then five times and never did she answer... I swear friends aren't to be trusted sometimes I don't know why, but my friends don't seem to put as much importance as I do on our friendship, but what can you do about it? After I got in touch with her I found out that she was sleeping... Do I even need to say anything here. We eventually met and ate together at a Barleys pizza. She had just recently broke up with her boyfriend and she was feeling down so I bought us a pizza to split. She only ate one piece, now doesn't it seem like she might maybe mention she wasn't that hungry before I bought a pizza that was big enough for two-three hungry people?

So after we departed I still had six slices of pizza with me before I fed some to our hobo population while at the bus station (more like getting hit up for food by hobos. I will never walk around with leftovers again). I ran into someone from my tennis class (Molly) at the bus station and we spoke for a while. I was waiting for a bus to my house that I later found out wouldn't come till the next day. Molly had decided to walk to where she worked and was going to take shelter there because it was cold, till her bus arrived so I walked with her and had fun getting to know her better. Anyways I had a great day. It was pretty damn cold today though.

I'm sure it will be a hindrance to me not being on time to things, but hey why fix it now when I can do it later right?